Performance just feels.. meh..

CapuchinSeven

It's not like my performance is bad, in PVE in fact it's fine. But drop into a large PVP fight and performance is just meh, again not unplayable but just really not what I expect.

I can play the game and sit at 100 FPS most of the time, but large big PVP battles get very stuttery and fall to 20 FPS, sometimes 15.

This is on a Haswell i7, 16GB RAM with twin 290X-X2's, if I run the game in Eyefinity or single screen the game will perform the same. If I change the settings to low, I still get the same 20FPS in large PVP battles.

It just feels... meh...

I can't complain that it's unplayable, it's just not how I would expect it. Does anyone else suffer from performance like this? Right now it feels like the game is in need of some major optimizing.

jrgray93

The game is poorly optimized for CPU usage. Nothing you can do about it.

I'm getting better performance than you in PVPon an i7-4770k and a single GTX 770, but my i7 is running at 4.6 GHz.

Curious what you meant about the GPUs you use. Was it crossfired 290x or did you dump $3,000 on dual 295x2 cards?

Sallington

I'm running an Fx-6300 at 4.2GHZ and GTX660s in SLI, and in large fights I get down to 15-20FPS. 45-60FPS anywhere else but PvP.

I'm hoping to upgrade to a 4690k so I can at least get to 25-30FPS in seiges.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

It's not like my performance is bad, in PVE in fact it's fine. But drop into a large PVP fight and performance is just meh, again not unplayable but just really not what I expect.

I can play the game and sit at 100 FPS most of the time, but large big PVP battles get very stuttery and fall to 20 FPS, sometimes 15.

This is on a Haswell i7, 16GB RAM with twin 290X-X2's, if I run the game in Eyefinity or single screen the game will perform the same. If I change the settings to low, I still get the same 20FPS in large PVP battles.

It just feels... meh...

I can't complain that it's unplayable, it's just not how I would expect it. Does anyone else suffer from performance like this? Right now it feels like the game is in need of some major optimizing.

Overclock your CPU.

On my i7 4820K at 5Ghz, with a single GTX780Ti @ 1290 Mhz, runs fine at 4K downsample resolution. I have capped it to 60hz, from the settings, and rarely drops below 58fps even in the most intensive battles.

The other day I set the speed in stock (3.7, 3.9 boost), and the game run like a dog, utilizing only 48% of my GPU instead the usual 70%. (I am expecting the Acer 4K monitor on Sept 5th hence the downsampling experimentation)

Assuming that your temperatures aren't hitting sky high, you should be OK.
Use MSI Afterburner overlay and see how the system is perfoming, including temperatures, heat etc.

CapuchinSeven

jrgray93 wrote: »

The game is poorly optimized for CPU usage. Nothing you can do about it.

I'm getting better performance than you in PVPon an i7-4770k and a single GTX 770, but my i7 is running at 4.6 GHz.

Curious what you meant about the GPUs you use. Was it crossfired 290x or did you dump $3,000 on dual 295x2 cards?

Two crossfired 290X's. Apart from the heat, which I'm kinda okay with now I'm used to them, they are flawless. Crysis 3 with everything on full or Skyrim modded to the teeth in eyefinity has been a gaming moment for me (although I've dropped down to a single 29" widescreen LG right now, 3 screens was a pain and I have a Mac on the desk as well ).

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

CapuchinSeven

Quick pic of my setup. Just wish I could get more than 20FPS in heavy PVP fights with it!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33266171/IMG_0027.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33266171/IMG_0025.jpg

CapuchinSeven

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

Overclock your CPU.

That's good to know, thanks, I'll overclock and see how it goes.

jrgray93

How hot does your top card run? There's not a lot of breathing room there.

CapuchinSeven

jrgray93 wrote: »

How hot does your top card run? There's not a lot of breathing room there.

Yes I can see why you would say but they are fine, they are designed to sit that close and run the same temperature with one or two cards in, the only noticeable build up of heat is from the rear of the cards pointing out of the case. They run at their standard operating temperature, 95 degrees under heavy load, which seems high for people not used to them but is where a 290 will sit under load and is perfectly normal and fine.

ESO only runs one card anyway.

raglau

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

It's not that it's CPU heavy, it's not very well multi-threaded. If you look at it with Perfmon, or even Taskman, you'll see one main thread (out of about 32 or more) whacking a single core, while all other cores sit twiddling their thumbs.

If the game were properly multi-thread coded, then most CPUs would have no issues with this game at all.

It's a very peculiar decision in terms of coding and the problems it causes won't go away overnight.

CapuchinSeven

squicker wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

It's not that it's CPU heavy, it's not very well multi-threaded. If you look at it with Perfmon, or even Taskman, you'll see one main thread (out of about 32 or more) whacking a single core, while all other cores sit twiddling their thumbs.

If the game were properly multi-thread coded, then most CPUs would have no issues with this game at all.

It's a very peculiar decision in terms of coding and the problems it causes won't go away overnight.

I was just doing that very thing actually and you're right, it's all on a single core.

raglau

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

I was just doing that very thing actually and you're right, it's all on a single core.

I did quite a detailed Perfmon when it was released and I think the other 30 odd threads all wait for this main thread that saturates a core. So clearly the work could have been distributed more effectively to achieve greater parallel processing.

I'm in the Elite Dangerous beta and they have that running nicely spreading its threads across all cores - even Hyperthreaded cores - with the result the game uses maybe 30% of a Core i7 even with all options enabled.

It's really disappointing that ESO is coded so inefficiently as I personally love the game. But I have a Core i7 at 4.6GHz with a GTX780 and I don't bother with PVP after negative performance experiences.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

jrgray93

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

jrgray93 wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

Also the massive security risk.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

Also the massive security risk.

Huh?

CapuchinSeven

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

It's not like my performance is bad, in PVE in fact it's fine. But drop into a large PVP fight and performance is just meh, again not unplayable but just really not what I expect.

I can play the game and sit at 100 FPS most of the time, but large big PVP battles get very stuttery and fall to 20 FPS, sometimes 15.

This is on a Haswell i7, 16GB RAM with twin 290X-X2's, if I run the game in Eyefinity or single screen the game will perform the same. If I change the settings to low, I still get the same 20FPS in large PVP battles.

It just feels... meh...

I can't complain that it's unplayable, it's just not how I would expect it. Does anyone else suffer from performance like this? Right now it feels like the game is in need of some major optimizing.

Overclock your CPU.

On my i7 4820K at 5Ghz, with a single GTX780Ti @ 1290 Mhz, runs fine at 4K downsample resolution. I have capped it to 60hz, from the settings, and rarely drops below 58fps even in the most intensive battles.

The other day I set the speed in stock (3.7, 3.9 boost), and the game run like a dog, utilizing only 48% of my GPU instead the usual 70%. (I am expecting the Acer 4K monitor on Sept 5th hence the downsampling experimentation)

Assuming that your temperatures aren't hitting sky high, you should be OK.
Use MSI Afterburner overlay and see how the system is perfoming, including temperatures, heat etc.

Currently holding a very stable and cool 4.6 overclock right now, I think I could get that to 4.8 easily.

Game is holding a much better 30FPS in huge zerg fights already. Thanks for the suggestion, I'd never even thought to check if the game was pounding a single core.

Armianlee

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

How hot does your top card run? There's not a lot of breathing room there.

Yes I can see why you would say but they are fine, they are designed to sit that close and run the same temperature with one or two cards in, the only noticeable build up of heat is from the rear of the cards pointing out of the case. They run at their standard operating temperature, 95 degrees under heavy load, which seems high for people not used to them but is where a 290 will sit under load and is perfectly normal and fine.

ESO only runs one card anyway.

I also run dual 290X, though mine are aftermarket Asus DC2s. I am happy to say ESO WILL CROSSFIRE! I have to Crossfire or my Eyefinity setup would crawl with only one. Just make sure you have the box checked in CCC under Crossfire where it says "Enable AMD CrossfireX for applications that have no associated application profile". Also make sure that you are running in TRUE fullscreen in ESO and not Windowed or Borderless Window Fullscreen.

The odd bit is, AMD added support for ESO in their April 24th Catalyst release, but it hasn't been working in the beta versions since.

Finally, while 95C is actually okay for the 290X, they do start throttling at 93C. So that could also be causing issues.

jrgray93 wrote:

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

I love Windows 8/8.1 and with a free gadget it acts just like 7 but with all the upgrades in speed and RAM footprint. However, I HAVE had to unpark cores with it. Windows 8 seems to pick and choose when it wants to release cores, and if it feels it doesn't have to it won't. I just ran CPU Unpark on my Windows 8.1 laptop and two were parked.

Badh0rse

I don't even PvP anymore .... it's sad. I am hoping they get it running well before I lose interest. Hmmm that actually applies to a lot of things in this game. For now I like the core concept enough to put up with the dump truck loads of crap they keep hauling in. Some day I am going to come to forums to complain about it and nobody will be left to argue with .... everyone will have left.

moXrox

I have sometimes really bad lag even the EU server is only around 250km away.

Paske

1. ctrl+alt+del and go to task manager.
2. Find ESO ( not launcher mind you, ESO ). Right click on ESO and set priority HIGH
3. Right click on ESO again and Set affinity, turn off Core 0
This will enable the game to use other cores.

While it wont do wonders, it will make the game a lot more gamer friendly.

EDIT: Fix is not mine BTW. But it works. For me at least.

CapuchinSeven

Armianlee wrote: »

I also run dual 290X, though mine are aftermarket Asus DC2s. I am happy to say ESO WILL CROSSFIRE! I have to Crossfire or my Eyefinity setup would crawl with only one. Just make sure you have the box checked in CCC under Crossfire where it says "Enable AMD CrossfireX for applications that have no associated application profile". Also make sure that you are running in TRUE fullscreen in ESO and not Windowed or Borderless Window Fullscreen.

Running with our without Crossfire makes no difference to my FPS, my Eyefinity runs fine with a single card (I know this because I added the 2nd card after release), but single screen or Eyefinty the game will stutter down to 20FPS in large zerg fights. Everything else is fine.

I've actually dropped the three screen setup now, I'm using a single long widescreen LG. Eyefinity wasn't very helpful when I wanted to connect to servers at work.

Armianlee wrote: »

Finally, while 95C is actually okay for the 290X, they do start throttling at 93C. So that could also be causing issues.

Actually I'm not sure why I said 95, it sits at 92. Think I was just going from memory and I came up with 95 degrees, after overclocking I've been watching my temperatures and the top card sits happy at 92 degrees.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

Also the massive security risk.

Huh?

you have to use an MSN account for windows 8. From there you have all your information for various sites and accounts in your system. My dad, when we got him his new computer, quickly found out his account, which he had signed up for but never used, had been hacked to distribute ***. While some of that might be bad password making, it's a liability. And you have all your eggs in one basket with windows 8.

Besides just being an awful OS in general.

Armianlee

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

Don't forget to turn off core parking. Made a difference to my perfmon but not much to the game. I think a bit though, so it's probably worth doing.

A good suggestion for Windows 7 but it won't help within the game. Windows 8-8.1 disables it by default. One of the many ways Windows 8 is superior once you've adapted to the new interface.

Also the massive security risk.

Huh?

you have to use an MSN account for windows 8. From there you have all your information for various sites and accounts in your system. My dad, when we got him his new computer, quickly found out his account, which he had signed up for but never used, had been hacked to distribute ***. While some of that might be bad password making, it's a liability. And you have all your eggs in one basket with windows 8.

It is tied into your MSN account for signing in only and automatically syncing your desktop and cloud with your other PCs. If someone hacks your account you can easily swap over and still access your files. Also the person who steals your account has NO access to your PC or it's files (except those in the cloud and they would have access to that if they guessed it regardless) if they do figure out your password. There is no vulnerability with it at all. Further you can use an offline account like Windows 7 (still have network access and what not) and not have to sign in with your MS account. Still, any of your online stuff is vulnerable regardless what OS you're using.

Besides just being an awful OS in general.

Now you're just trolling. It is everything Windows 7 is with a bunch of tweaks, enhancements and features. (and if you don't like Metro you do not ever have to see it) Unlike Vista which overly bloated your system, performed like a haggard dog, and dragged everything down horribly.

Armianlee

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Running with our without Crossfire makes no difference to my FPS, my Eyefinity runs fine with a single card (I know this because I added the 2nd card after release), but single screen or Eyefinty the game will stutter down to 20FPS in large zerg fights. Everything else is fine.

Well, I don't see above 50fps at 5070x1080 with one card need the second to have it nice and smooth. The CPU bottleneck is the main issue... while I can get a better framerate running both, they are still held back because of the CPU usage being abysmal. I've not seen lower than 30fps in PVP though. Hopefully Zenimax will be working on core utilisation sooner rather than later. I think we will see a massive increase across the board if they did.

shiva7663

What's your monitor refresh rate?

Rune_Relic

squicker wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

It's not that it's CPU heavy, it's not very well multi-threaded. If you look at it with Perfmon, or even Taskman, you'll see one main thread (out of about 32 or more) whacking a single core, while all other cores sit twiddling their thumbs.

If the game were properly multi-thread coded, then most CPUs would have no issues with this game at all.

It's a very peculiar decision in terms of coding and the problems it causes won't go away overnight.

????
Win 7 + i7 3770 stock + 8gb ram + gtx770
I have core0 thread 0 used by windows.
core1 t1
core2 t1
core3 t0+t1
...are used by ESO.exe @ 25%

I dont understand why you feel its not multithreaded ?

Armianlee

Rune_Relic wrote: »

squicker wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

It's not that it's CPU heavy, it's not very well multi-threaded. If you look at it with Perfmon, or even Taskman, you'll see one main thread (out of about 32 or more) whacking a single core, while all other cores sit twiddling their thumbs.

If the game were properly multi-thread coded, then most CPUs would have no issues with this game at all.

It's a very peculiar decision in terms of coding and the problems it causes won't go away overnight.

????
Win 7 + i7 3770 stock + 8gb ram + gtx770
I have core0 thread 0 used by windows.
core1 t1
core2 t1
core3 t0+t1
...are used by ESO.exe @ 25%

I dont understand why you feel its not multithreaded ?

The game itself doesn't seem to be correctly optimised for multithreading. Ones like Battlefield 3 and 4 which are, arguably a shining example for multicore/thread usage, utilise every core/thread at it's disposal. I see 100% on every core/thread with Battlefield. With ESO I see 1 at 100%, while the rest run at between 0% and 25%. This is where the issue is, until we can at least get 4 running at 100% we are sorely lacking and the game cannot really be considered to have good or proper multithreading.

jrgray93

You can use local accounts on Windows 8 / 8.1. Also, the security risk you speak of? There's no difference there than with any other account ever. Hell, you can turn off a lot of the cloud features if that scares you.

Rune_Relic

Armianlee wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

squicker wrote: »

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Most MMOs are CPU heavy as you said, I might over clock my CPU a little, that should keep me above the 20 FPS mark.

It's not that it's CPU heavy, it's not very well multi-threaded. If you look at it with Perfmon, or even Taskman, you'll see one main thread (out of about 32 or more) whacking a single core, while all other cores sit twiddling their thumbs.

If the game were properly multi-thread coded, then most CPUs would have no issues with this game at all.

It's a very peculiar decision in terms of coding and the problems it causes won't go away overnight.

????
Win 7 + i7 3770 stock + 8gb ram + gtx770
I have core0 thread 0 used by windows.
core1 t1
core2 t1
core3 t0+t1
...are used by ESO.exe @ 25%

I dont understand why you feel its not multithreaded ?

The game itself doesn't seem to be correctly optimised for multithreading. Ones like Battlefield 3 and 4 which are, arguably a shining example for multicore/thread usage, utilise every core/thread at it's disposal. I see 100% on every core/thread with Battlefield. With ESO I see 1 at 100%, while the rest run at between 0% and 25%. This is where the issue is, until we can at least get 4 running at 100% we are sorely lacking and the game cannot really be considered to have good or proper multithreading.

OK. Perhaps its not running 100% because its waiting for network data and has nothing to do ? Perhaps its GPU locked.
I can understand if the cores aint running evenly spread...I just don't know if the usage% is low through bad coding.

Armianlee

Rune_Relic wrote: »

OK. Perhaps its not running 100% because its waiting for network data and has nothing to do ?
I can understand if the cores aint running evenly spread...I just don't know if the usage% is low through bad coding.

That would be super if that was the reason. The fact that the game drops into 30fps for people who have dual enthusiast cards with heavily overclocked i7s while still only ticking away at a maximum of 25% on the other cores says it is not. My cards are never being fed so they are running 100% each... in fact it is normally 70% on one and 60% on the other (again, BF3 and 4 run both at 100%) with dips down into 45% sometimes rotating between cards. This shows a significant bottleneck at the CPU.

Further, the usage we see at 25% on the other cores may, in fact, have nothing to do with ESO at all. I've not bothered to actually check to see what is running on those cores, I just see it ticking away through Afterburner on my G19s. It could be very possible that Windows is running ESO on C0T0 and then allocating it's background tasks and basic functioning to the "dormant" cores.

It is the same with a lot of MMOs, full on single core usage with a slight passing interest in the others, making even highend systems suffer issues. That is why you see guys like myself and the OP with more than enough horsepower to run this game and spank it handily, running into the same issues as guys running single 750ti or 7850s on an i5.