FPS drop over time

Soleya

Played a bunch of PVP the past few days. On AD and DC characters my fps is about 40-60 when I start in Cyrodil, and after awhile it drops to about 20-25. It's even worse if I'm in a group.

However today I played on EP and it started at 20fps, and went down to about 7 after a few minutes. It was really just unplayable.

In comparison, in PVE zones I get over 100fps.

Core I7 4770k
16GB Ram
nVidia GTX 1080
Windows 7 64 bit

d0e1ow

This has been happening to me for MONTHS. I start the game, it runs great, and after awhile the FPS can get as low as 25! I re-start and all is back to normal! I tried a DirectX fix I read in another thread but that did nothing.

DemonNinja

I've recently come back to the game and have been noticing this for the past 3 weeks in Cyrodiil, after about 1.5-2 hours into PvP play, especially in larger fights my frames go from 90 to 60 to 30 to 15 until I have to just restart it. This is really disheartening. I run a Nvidia 1070 on Windows 10 DX11 client with max settings except particles which are all at half.

Marlon018BR

This game is ruined since november/2015 to me. Played for 200 hours with 2 chars level 50, always +60 fps (in cities 45+), and since 2015 my game starts with high fps and in minutes all go to very low frame rates in same locations. Unplayable.

Is important to say: i changed my graphic card to GTX 1060 6 GB in last month. The problem on ESO is here, of course, in the same way. But is not problem on my computer and never was. I have absolute assurance of that since begging of 2016 after testing so many great and beutiful games like Far Cry Primal and Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Now in the present, my PC runs games like The Witcher 3, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Watch Dogs 2 and SkyrimSE with a lot of graphics mods even better than before and they eat a lot more resources than ESO. ESO still bugged.

I'm not sure what happened and i made a lot of tests trying to solve this problem. Really, a lot of tests. I'm tired because i'm trying to solve with each new update, or at least verifying if update solved this issue, but now i don't have more patience to dispose to this game. I think even ZoS has not sure (looking at the size of this topic and how long my problem persists) what is happening. I never seen before any game run great and, after a lot of fun with great performance, starts to run poorly in the same or better machine. The bad side is: i want to play more, but is unplayable!

Ahmbor

The memory leak is back. After playing 40 min the fps drops from over 60 to 20~ in the same area.

mook-eb16_ESO

alt f4 doesn't terminate eso process in win 10 at least , I found doing this then restarting client meant there were two instances or more of if repeated of eso.exe running in the back ground. try terminating all these processes then restarting.

Betheny

Have to keep restarting game to get fps from 35fps (where it drops it) back to 100fps (where it normally is)...bit of a difference...

Will this ever get fixed.

ArchaicSEAL

I am having the same problem. Game starts fine and i am running along at 95 - 99 fps, even in towns and cities (maxed settings). After about an hour of gaming, I am suddenly fluctuating around 50-60 fps and if i am in a town or city it goes to around 30 - 45 fps. If I keep playing past an hour it eventually goes down to 28-30 fps constantly. I can do a /reloadui and nothing gets better. If i logout and back in i am back to 95-99 fps again for up to another hour before it starts to come down again just like before. Having to log out and back in every 45 minutes to an hour is really starting to get old... if i cant find a solution to this I think I will cancel my subscription and move on to other games.

I have tried running the game with addons all deactivated. I have checked my cpu and gpu temps (just mentioning it here for the hell of it, but my system is entirely watercooled and heavily fanned out so my temps are never an issue). I have run the repair tool, i have cleared the shaders.cooked, I have lowered settings in game (which is really friggin ridiculous to do considering the hardware I run). I am at wits end with this, which really sucks because I want to support ZOS and ESO and happen to enjoy the game very much... but the framerate drops are killing me and pushing me away...

My System:
Windows 10 Pro (64 bit)
i7-4790k watercooled via Corsair H90i
16 GB System memory
EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 Hybrid (watercooled GPU/Memory and air cooled VRMs)
Samsung EVO Pro 512GB SSD
Acer Predator X34 monitor @ 3440x1440 - 100hz

*note: though I have my system normally overclocked, I have removed any overclocking profiles I use and have gone back to standard clock rates on CPU, Memory and GPU to test/troubleshoot this problem. The frame rate drop persists both while overclocked and while non-overclocked. Matter of fact, nothing really changes when I am running overclocked - the game still gives me the same initial fps and fps drops over time. Also, I do not have any issues with other high end game titles (such as: The Division, The Witcher 3, Battlefield 1 - to name a few) - my problem is specific to ESO alone.

Shogunami

Might as well chime in too:

Windows 10 Pro
i7 6700 @ 3.8ghz - amazing air cooling, ~25C idle, ~60C during load
16GB Ram
EVGA 980 Ti
Samsung EVO Pro 512GB SSD for game
Samsung EVO Pro 256GB SSD for windows
Acer XB271HU @ 2560x1440 - 144hz

I've been having performance issues in ESO for the entire duration of having this PC, meaning over a year. Been googling, searching forums and reddit and it would appear that fps drops and stuttering is a common problem. What's more surprising is that people with high-end/enthusiast PCs are having the most problems.
The fps starts out fine but then slowly deteriorates, and after having played for an hour or so, opening inventory (or any menu/pressing ALT) makes the game stutter. Reading books causes a stutter, crafting an item causes a stutter - even mousing over objects in inventory causes stutter.

Constant 80+ fps in wilderness, solid 40+ in towns. Solid 0-10 during boss fights in trials - even with ALL settings in ESO at minimum and the game looks like Half-Life running in software mode.

Disabling addons makes no difference apart from a few fps here and there - nothing major. These problems persist even if no addons are running at all.

And as others have mentioned I also don't have any performance issues in Battlefield 1, Mass Effect Andromeda (it can drop to 40fps in some scenes), Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3, even World of Warcraft - during intense battles and scenes it can drop to about 50. etc.

I think ZOS should be starting to see a trend here - something is blatantly broken in the engine or game code.

If I could at least just get playable fps in trials, meaning 30+, I could enjoy the endgame of ESO. It's a damn shame seeing as this is one of the best MMO's ever made, but some content is unplayable..

GoldSabre

Shogunami wrote: »

I think ZOS should be starting to see a trend here - something is blatantly broken in the engine or game code.

Yep, this is the main reason why I've stopped playing. It was such an effort to worry about FPS loss and constant tinkering and searching for problems and trying fixes that don't fix it. Eventually, you just get fatigued from having to stop playing every hour and relogging to clear the significant FPS drop.

harper17

This is serious problem .
My 1070 has same stuttering.

Cambion2401

With Morrowind, all issues seem to be gone for me completely. Like, all of them, including the few left and the few new ones since my last post. Considering code should be the same for people who do own morrowind and those who don't, I have no clue why it's gone while the topic here is getting more active again.

However, considering how the same or simular hardware has the problem for some people and not for others, perhaps Zenimax has trouble reproducing it? Even on my pc it's kinda switching between having problems and not having them, and the places sometimes switch too. These switches are always with patch updates.

But then again (I said this more early), they could adleast give us some information about why it takes so long, or why it's happening? They have more debugging options then any of us, and more knowledge on the code. I can understand there might be something behind the scenes that makes it very hard or impossible to fix, and we don't know if they are actually actively working on it (my random switches make me think they might), but, you know, telling us about it would adleast stop us from guessing purely on the final result, and might ease some mind and/or cause more understanding towards the problem...

reActor1

HalfSaw wrote: »

@ZOS_AlexTardif Until the issue is solved, could we use a script command (or sort of) to avoid relogging?
I think of something able to temporary "clean" the memory, reboot the stucked process or such.
It would be extremely useful to mitigate our frustration.

After more then a year I try again in the hope of an answer: it seems like relogging temporary fixes the issue.
Could you @ZOS_GinaBruno please let us know if devs can create a command to "reset" the client status (as like a full reload) so we can keep our place in Cyrodill, BGs and PvE instances without being kicked?
This way the fps drop would be way more tolerable at a reasonable cost, I guess.

Ahmbor

GUYS? I found the solution.

I switched the sampling rate from my soundcard from 48KHz to 44.1KHz.

I guess it is some buffer problem of the DirectX sound library.

ArchaicSEAL

Ahmbor wrote: »

GUYS? I found the solution.

I switched the sampling rate from my soundcard from 48KHz to 44.1KHz.

I guess it is some buffer problem of the DirectX sound library.

Can anyone verify this? Because I am walking out the door (again) from ESO today... if the proglem is simply sound sampling, then hell, that would be a an amazing fix.

Actually, just check my soundsetting for playback in windows... was already set to 44KHz - too bad. I actually got excited for a moment.

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO

Yea, unfortunately that isn't the solution. I've tried it and it didn't work for me just in case others wonder. It's worth a try though I guess since it seems as if this guy is pretty set that is solve it for him.

GoldSabre

If there was ever a naturopathic version of an IT fix, @Ahmbor did a damn good job representing it!

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO

Just gotta believe...

It would be interesting to know what else he did though. Since his issue seems to be fixed. Maybe he just quit the game already though and doesn't wanna admit that 'fix' didn't work.

He seems quite convinced that it did the job idk..

Cambion2401

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

Just gotta believe...

It would be interesting to know what else he did though. Since his issue seems to be fixed. Maybe he just quit the game already though and doesn't wanna admit that 'fix' didn't work.

He seems quite convinced that it did the job idk..

Some time ago it helped for some people to install actual DirectX (as Windows10 emulates older DirectX versions trough DirectX12, and any emulation cost performance. Trying to directly call to files might also give problems). It's a bit tricky because Windows would tell you you have a newer DirectX already, but there is a version for developers that does work.

Now, this didn't work for everyone too, but there is a pattern.

Perhaps his solution was not the one, but perhaps it is indeed DirectX related. The issue (for me) has always changed with every patch. Right now it gone and thanks to a reinstall I am on "normal" DirectX. Or (if it's DirectX related) my issue isn't really gone but 8GB DDR5X vram makes it more doable. I've been able to play 7 hours strait this weekend tho (altrough I have a crafter on another character now so I relog to switch every now and then).

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO

Can you elaborate? Maybe just link something?

Cambion2401

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

Can you elaborate? Maybe just link something?

I think a half year ago or something, in this same forum thread. I don't know much else too say than it that comment. Installing developers DirectX fixed or made it better for some, but not for everyone. And one guy had a Mac, so OpenGL.

I'm on my phone now because I need to get to work soon, so can't link. If you want to try, Google the developers SDK. I think you can get them from Microsoft without a developers account. But it didn't work for everyone. I'm mainly saying that, besides one guy which might have been another problem too (because it's one guy on the Internet), DirectX has come up as a problem and it helped some before.

I would say play arround a bit with DirectX. If you find anything, tell us. I'm not going to debug it now. It works for me. I don't work for Zenimax so it's not my job, so I rather not reproduce it.

Betheny

Ahmbor wrote: »

GUYS? I found the solution.

I switched the sampling rate from my soundcard from 48KHz to 44.1KHz.

I guess it is some buffer problem of the DirectX sound library.

This is most definitely NOT a fix, I've tested under various conditions for a couple days now and issue still occurs.

Going back to my previous sound settings.

Betheny

Cambion2401 wrote: »

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

Just gotta believe...

It would be interesting to know what else he did though. Since his issue seems to be fixed. Maybe he just quit the game already though and doesn't wanna admit that 'fix' didn't work.

He seems quite convinced that it did the job idk..

Some time ago it helped for some people to install actual DirectX (as Windows10 emulates older DirectX versions trough DirectX12, and any emulation cost performance. Trying to directly call to files might also give problems). It's a bit tricky because Windows would tell you you have a newer DirectX already, but there is a version for developers that does work.

Now, this didn't work for everyone too, but there is a pattern.

Perhaps his solution was not the one, but perhaps it is indeed DirectX related. The issue (for me) has always changed with every patch. Right now it gone and thanks to a reinstall I am on "normal" DirectX. Or (if it's DirectX related) my issue isn't really gone but 8GB DDR5X vram makes it more doable. I've been able to play 7 hours strait this weekend tho (altrough I have a crafter on another character now so I relog to switch every now and then).

I use Windows 7, so whatever voodoo tricks you think you found (but didn't share with us anyway) do not apply here.

Cambion2401

Betheny wrote: »

Cambion2401 wrote: »

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

Just gotta believe...

It would be interesting to know what else he did though. Since his issue seems to be fixed. Maybe he just quit the game already though and doesn't wanna admit that 'fix' didn't work.

He seems quite convinced that it did the job idk..

Some time ago it helped for some people to install actual DirectX (as Windows10 emulates older DirectX versions trough DirectX12, and any emulation cost performance. Trying to directly call to files might also give problems). It's a bit tricky because Windows would tell you you have a newer DirectX already, but there is a version for developers that does work.

Now, this didn't work for everyone too, but there is a pattern.

Perhaps his solution was not the one, but perhaps it is indeed DirectX related. The issue (for me) has always changed with every patch. Right now it gone and thanks to a reinstall I am on "normal" DirectX. Or (if it's DirectX related) my issue isn't really gone but 8GB DDR5X vram makes it more doable. I've been able to play 7 hours strait this weekend tho (altrough I have a crafter on another character now so I relog to switch every now and then).

I use Windows 7, so whatever voodoo tricks you think you found (but didn't share with us anyway) do not apply here.

I did share, on this very forum, on this very thread, when it happend, thank you. I even shared the developers DirectX I had on my pc because I wasn't sure if you could get it without being a developer, and they weren't sure the where trying the right one. Please don't tell me I didn't share if you haven't looked this thread from end till beginning...

I'm on this thread because I never turned of the email notifications from back then and the thread was quite silent till a few days ago in the first place, because by now my problems are fixt. I sadly don't know the exact cause...

I already said it didn't work for everyone, but it did work or improve for some. Every time someone get things to go better, it's been DirectX related. So I think there might be a link, and playing arround with DirectX might help some people. That's all I just said.

And the emulation on Windows10 is known to cause performance drops in general. It's never bad to install normal DirectX. And indeed, this is a Windows10 only thing. If you're on another OS, it's not going to help you, but then again, I didn't say it was a magical fix, I said it fixed or improved for some, but not everyone. There is more going on, but it can help sometimes, also in other not-directX 12 games, and there is no reason not to install it on a game pc...

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO

Well, I'm not quite sure if it's entirely fixed yet. But I'm quite positive it's at least a great improvement. After installing the runtimes from the sdk I've played a couple of hours now and it's not gone as bad as it was before. I still clearly loose performance after a while, about ~5 fps and more stutters when streaming in stuff, but it always goes back up to 60fps+ if I'm outside towns.

Might be that its only better cuz I'm playing in another area now. I didn't try to reproduce the problem in the same areas I started in.

I'll report back if I know anything else.

And yea btw I tried Windows 7 & 8.1 on the weekend and I had the same issue. So it also has to be hardware related. On Windows 7 it took way longer for it to happen though. Maybe that was only the low pop on early Sunday morning though.

Cambion2401

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

Well, I'm not quite sure if it's entirely fixed yet. But I'm quite positive it's at least a great improvement. After installing the runtimes from the sdk I've played a couple of hours now and it's not gone as bad as it was before. I still clearly loose performance after a while, about ~5 fps and more stutters when streaming in stuff, but it always goes back up to 60fps+ if I'm outside towns.

It's not a perfect fix, or a complete one. But it seems to help some people, and like I said, it's good to have it installed on any game PC. It's useless for anyone who doesn't game or who's somewhat casual and doesn't need to worry about the performance loss unless they have something that needs the SDKs. My best guess is Microsoft left it out to safe the space from DX8 till DX11 for these people, who are there biggest market. Windows is known to be a big OS system after all, and they have been working on improving that, so this might be part of that improvement. Would be nice if Microsoft's help desk would understand this and tell you to install these SDKs instead of telling you to go back to Windows7 for this reason, even tho the SDKs are on there own website. I guess it's the same with all help desks, to many noobs on front line *shrugs*.

And yes, cities are always lower in FPS. I'm guessing (again, it really sucks to have no code while trying to debug or find causes) that it's because of the amount of people there. Not only do all these people have to be rendered, but they also have to be calculated. And these people generally spam skills and such for lulz because cities are rather save, which also has to be rendered. Assuming it's rendered with an FX, that can cost quite some performance (which is why we work (in general) with material shaders instead of FX effects on anything that doesn't change, FX is bad for performance, but more dynamic. Another reason is that to much FX might cause blur on everything). Other than that, there are also a lot more structure in general, which means (again) more calculations for you GPU. However, the FPS loss should not make it unplayable. 5fps is fine tho.

Area's can differ, again on how busy they are and how much objects, etc.

Streaming is logic to cause stuttering. It uses your internet just like the game does. You can try to lower the resolution of your stream or set a max internet your stream is allowed to use, but that's just really lag caused by not having enough internet speed (because it's shared with the stream). Not much real options to that, either bottleneck one, don't do both at once, or get a better internet connection.

Like I said, right now, it seems like issues with DirectX. I think the guy with the mac might have happen to have a different issue with similar symptoms or OpenGL is having the same issues. Haven't heard since that last conversation tho, so it might have been different and fixed long time ago anyways. For everyone else, whenever things got better, it was because of a change in something DirectX related, which makes me think DirectX is the most logic cause.

Please do report back. Even tho we should not be the one trouble shooting, it would be great if we can find the cause and Zenimax can fix it faster. I would debug if I didn't have only one gamepc and have it working right now. Virtual machines are no good either. I want to be able to play to after all. But hè, I don't work for Zenimax so it's technically not my problem. I'm really hear right now because I like to help and as a software engineer (who works with desktop software, mainly back-end) I might find a thing or two people miss. Debugging, testing, and fixing that is part of my job after all, even when coding is more fun, I'm used to think about what happening on the back end, and know more about how things work underneath than most gamers (again, this doesn't count for anyone on the forum). This might be less fun than coding itself, but still better than documentation and designing the software .

k4Ku.exGb16_ESO wrote: »

And yea btw I tried Windows 7 & 8.1 on the weekend and I had the same issue. So it also has to be hardware related. On Windows 7 it took way longer for it to happen though. Maybe that was only the low pop on early Sunday morning though.

OS is software, and it might still be software related. People don't like hearing this, but Windows10 has the best performance in general. Windows 7 also has been outdated, which might cause issues. Windows 8 and 8.1 are badly programmed (well, for a desktop OS). It's too much programmed like a tablet or phone OS instead of a desktop one. And the way Microsoft makes OS systems, it's no good changing that up. It's no Unix-like that can be edited to be whatever you want, but sometimes Microsoft aims to do stuff like that without propperly thinking it trough. Luckily, they learned with Windows 10. Anyways, there might be many things causing the issues on those systems, including but certainly not limited to DirectX. Considering the minimum for ESO is Windows 7 32-bit, it's up to Zenimax to either fix that or tell people it's time to get that free update to Windows 10 (yes you can still get it).

I don't think it's hardware really. I've played on low-end laptops and my game pc. If you have (concerning hardware) the minimum specs, it should not be an issue. As long as people remember minimum specs don't mean you can play with everything on high settings, or even anything on high settings. I would say, minimum is everything on low with 60FPS, recommended is everything on ultra with 60FPS, but that's roughly of course.

Ahmbor

What happend with the DirectX SDK if i start a fresh new Steam or Gog game? Normally, DirectX is reinstalled there. Every game.

Cambion2401

Ahmbor wrote: »

What happend with the DirectX SDK if i start a fresh new Steam or Gog game? Normally, DirectX is reinstalled there. Every game.

Normally, it's not really the SDK (Software Development Kit) you get, as obviously, you don't develop software. You get end-user runtime versions.

It's the "normal" version that will recognize you have a newer version (DX12 from Windows10) already installed, and will abort (behind the scenes, it doesn't always show, but might give a finish sign instead). That's why you need to download the developers SDK. If you try to install DirectX trough end-user downloads it will also tell you a newer version is already installed. The developer version doesn't do that because developers need to be able to have old and multiple versions installed for testing and debugging purposes.

The DirectX with those installers you name might also be less complete. Although it SHOULD include anything relevant, it doesn't always do. Because the developer version has literally any file, it's always complete. For example, DirectX9 has many loose files, and a bundle. Normally, the bundle should be enough, but sometimes, loose files are still needed. They are rarely delivered with these pre-installed DirectX version, because, according to Microsoft, their functions should be in the bundle (so the default end-user redistributable is only this bundle, which mostly is simply added).

Another example is when there are only a few loose files needed, and those are installed with the SDK (so developers removed anything they deemed irrelevant, for example to make the application smaller). An update might make more files needed, but these will only be added with a clean install of everything, if people remember to add them to there end-user redistributable. Otherwise, it's up to the end-user to install these, or a separate install script has to be made for the update.

EDIT:
This is what is pre-installed (end-user Runtimes):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
This is what you need to make sure it installs correctly (SDK):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812

Betheny

Cambion2401 wrote: »

EDIT:
This is what is pre-installed (end-user Runtimes):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
This is what you need to make sure it installs correctly (SDK):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812

These are the links we wanted.

Cambion2401

Betheny wrote: »

Cambion2401 wrote: »

EDIT:
This is what is pre-installed (end-user Runtimes):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
This is what you need to make sure it installs correctly (SDK):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812

These are the links we wanted.

You only need the last one. First one is pre-installed with the game. Last one is the one that might help for some (but again, no magical fix).

I was on pc now. Easier to look for them .