[Quick & Dirty Guide/Tech Explanation] How to limit your framerate in ESO for G-Sync/anything else.

Attorneyatlawl

For anyone who needs to limit the Elder Scrolls Online's framerate any reason including tearing above your monitor's refresh rate, to make sure G-Sync stays enabled full-time, or raise the default limit of 100fps if you're using, for example, a 120hz or 144hz display, you can edit the usersettings.ini file in your "Documents" folder under Elder Scrolls Online\live. You can see how to find/edit it below, and I'll list the line you'll want to change after the picture. I'll add in some tech stuff but also I'll plain-English it if you just want to know what to change :

Full-sized link: http://i.imgur.com/9VQE9bh.jpg


The line you'll want, by default (unless you have changed it previously) will be this:

SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01000000"

This is the value in seconds, or in other words, a second divided by this number, that the game is allowed to render frames for display output (layman's terminology: the FPS limit ). You can change this to any number you would like by altering the number in quotation marks in that line. For example, 60 frames per second is 16.66e milliseconds mathematically, or essentially every 16.6 milliseconds with the 6 after the decimal repeating infinitely. If you wanted to limit your framerate to 60 fps to keep heat/power use down, you could change the line to look like this, instead:

SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01680000"

Why didn't I say to just do sixes in there? Because the number is what the game engine is told to aim for, and the actual framerate will vary a little depending on what's happening in-game just by the nature of how it all works internally. By adding in a little bit of a lower limit, this will generally keep it from exceeding 60 fps, but not limit it to much less either. If you need to stay below a specific frame rate, make sure you add this kind of extra time buffer in the number you enter.

Quickly and easily, here are some of the common framerates you might want to set as limits, and a line you can just copy in to do so, pasting it to replace the existing one. Remember, you can always paste the stock one back if you goof it! You won't cause anything to actually go wrong if you make a mistake. To calculate your own, simply use a calculator to divide 1 (one) by the number of frames per second you want. Then, add around 5% (1/20th) of the number you get onto itself and use it:

30 FPS
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.03450000"

60 FPS
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01680000"

96 FPS
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01042000"

120 FPS
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.00845000"

144 FPS
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.00705000"

For G-Sync users, add a little extra padding (~10% instead of 5% as described above) to make sure you don't have your framerate exceed your monitor's refresh rate, which causes G-Sync to disable itself temporarily until the framerate goes back down below that level. For 60hz on my 4K G-Sync monitor, I use...

SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01700000"

...to ensure that it doesn't go above 60. Another easy alternative is to use a program like MSI Afterburner's "RTSS (RivaTuner Statistics Server)" to set a global framerate limit for any Direct3D/DirectX game, which usually is able to work within 0.1-0.2 FPS of the limit you set with the caveat that due to doing it at the OS level rather than the game itself, will add an extremely minor amount of input lag (generally, only tournament-level competitive gamers will even perceive this, but I did want to note it).

Attorneyatlawl

A quick addendum in response to a Reddit comment...

Driver level framerate limiting adds significant latency and is less precise in terms of the result (more fluctuation past the limit you specified). Editing one line in ESO's settings file is not only better (lowest possible input lag and display latency), but also much simpler and easier for most people in the first place than downloading and installing an extra utility. That's why even though I don't care for Minion for addons, I get why most people do. Driver framerate limiters are the worst method, objectively and subjectively, to accomplish the task.

To note the technical "stuff" here, using driver-level framerate limiting generally is accurate to +/- 5%, or on a 60 FPS limit around 3 frames per second either way (which means it would range from 57 to 63 FPS, largely useless for trying to stay beneath your refresh rate to reduce tearing, or force technologies like variable refresh rate through G-Sync to stay active full-time as well as their associated input latency benefits). The added input latency is typically around a full frame or more extra (~15-20 milliseconds) which to many people is very noticeable.

Game engine-based limiting via settings files or in-game commands like this guide goes over, generally are accurate to within 1 to one and a half frames per second in either direction, so limiting it to 58 as your target will work to remain under 60. This has the lowest latency as it is all handled by the game clients themselves, but isn't quite as accurate as API-level limits such as by DirectX, as programs like RivaTuner Statistics Server (a part of MSI Afterburner, abbreviated as "RTSS") provide, which remain accurate to within about a tenth to a fifth of a frame per second at the cost of ~2-4 milliseconds of additional input and handling latency (an amount only noticeable to professional-level or extremely competitive gamers).

SpearDusk

what value would you suggest for 165hz g sync? or just set it at MinFrameTime.2 "0.01700000"

Ignotus

If you are not opposed to addons, Votan created an addon called Votan's Advanced Settings that allows you to adjust various graphics settings from UserSettings.txt while in-game without ever opening the file itself. The file extension is txt btw, not ini. Maybe that changed at some point. Anyway, one of the settings in the addon allows you to adjust the max fps using a slider.

Description
Allows to change additional client configuration settings (UserSettings.txt) not handled by build-in UI.

Tove

Hello Necro here..

can somebody say the value for 75hz // 75 FPS ?

I really like to change it in the usersettings and not any third program ore addon.
Thanks!

Nijey

Tove wrote: »

Hello Necro here..

can somebody say the value for 75hz // 75 FPS ?

I really like to change it in the usersettings and not any third program ore addon.
Thanks!

@Tove
1/75*1,05=0,01400000
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01400000"