Black Screen Crashes

Kalizar

Since I have purchased the game last week, I have had frequent crashes that start off with the game freezing before the entire screen goes black. The happens typically around 20-30 minutes of play time, yet sometimes I can play for much longer without experiencing a crash. The games sound can still be heard when this occurs. When I try to alt-tab or ctrl-alt-del out of the black screen I am unable to and I have to do a hard reset on my PC. I know this has been a common issue with players in the past, especially with users with an Nvidia graphics card, and I have read through many forum posts, yet nothing has provided me with a proper fix. The things I have attempted are:

-Added an exemption for ESO in my firewall
-Run the game in admin mode
-Updated my Nvidia video drivers
-Adjusted the video driver setting to run the game at high performance
-Adjusted the screen resolution in the UserSetting file
-Deleted the ShaderCache.cook
-Removed all addons
-A few other things I can't remember

I have already submitted two separate tickets but have still not received any useful information. I am growing tired of trying to tweak my PC in order to try and play the game. I love the game and would hate to give up on it but if I can't get any help from this thread I am going to finally move on. I have attached my dxdiag information to this post and would be happy to provide any further information if needed.

steveaxeman1

I had the same problem, I tried all the fixes that everyone posted. I finally found a fix for me, hope this helps you out too. go to settings in the game and just set the graphics to default and see if that works for you too. I had no issues since then

Amerin

I just returned to the game and found myself having this issue. I have a GTX660 on Windows 7 64bit. I fixed it by lowering my graphics card base clock speed by 30mhz. I found this fixed the problem for a couple other players with different cards and gave it a go. I was crashing quite often and have played stable for 3, 4-5 hour sessions now. I think it is fixed but no idea why this worked. I am so happy. Give it a try. I had tried all of those things you did and then some and this is what worked for me.

I used nVidia Inspector to underclock the card.

http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html

e1team

My crashes are back Looks like I'm gonna try that thing with lowering clocks... But why? How can clock speed affect these crashes? And I really don't want to tinker with clocks.
My GPU is EVGA GTX 750 SC (Super Clocked).
Gonna try and report of the progress.

e1team

Reading on EVGA forums seems factory overclocked and boosted cards aren't stable...
That just sux balls...

Flubble86

i bought this in the steam sale and i'm plagued by lock ups with the black screen then an "apphangb1" windows error a little while after, i can barely play for 2 minutes or open the inventory/map without it crashing and i've tried every tweak and test i can find to try and fix it and i have more than the recommended specs to run the game.

i'm using a Asus R9 290X graphics card so it's not just an nvidia thing.

i sent a very detailed support ticket earlier today about it.

e1team

lol! Good luck getting it answered! I got had my ticket answered with first generic message, then another saying my ticket was closed and asking how was the service!
Anyhow, downclocking seem to help for now. Some two hours and no crashes, though I guess it doesn't show anything. I'll post if I get crashed.

Flubble86

i ran resource monitor while i played until i crashed to see what was going on, getting hard faults after 4GB ram used which is where it's crashing, as soon as it hits 4GB usage it crashes... using eso64.exe so it should use all 8GB if possible seeing as it's 64 bit.

i increased and moved my page file to another drive too to see if that helps but no luck.

no faults with my ram on various tests and bios/windows is recognizing 8GB and it's definitely set up in dual channel (2x4GB)

Amerin

Did you try running in 32bit? I don't know if that would help but it was one thing I found worked for some people while I was trying to fix my issue.

I am remaining stable with the underclockage of my video card still.

Flubble86

having the problem with 32 and 64

this is the only game i have a problem with lol

e1team

Sent my GPU to a lab for testing to make sure there's 100% nothing on my side. If it turns without fault, gonna play underclocked and wait till ZOS fix it.

Flubble86

well i got a human response from support... who seem to think i have network connectivity issues... 9-22ms average pings are not what i'd call a network issue, in fact i'd say that's a pretty good connection, but whatever i did what they said and still have the same issue.


they haven't got a clue, i think asking amd/nvidia for support would be a better option for this problem.

Mureel

Also check it's not all dusty and overheating.

Darkarc

This is happening to me too and seems to be happening with only this game. I have a AMD r9 380 and it crashes every few 10-30mins. Sometimes I get lucky and I can restart the program but most of the time it turns in to a black screen and eventually my graphic card no longer sends a signal to my monitor. The only solution is to force turn off my pc and restart.

e1team

When it happens do you still hear sounds? As you get black screen try the following: *ENTER* -> "/quit" -> *E*
i.e. try to quit the game legitimate way. It may help you avoid force restarting your PC. And try downclocking some 100Mhz your GPU, it actually may help.

FogZZZ

e1team wrote: »

And try downclocking some 100Mhz your GPU, it actually may help.

Amerin wrote: »

I have a GTX660 on Windows 7 64bit. I fixed it by lowering my graphics card base clock speed by 30mhz. I found this fixed the problem for a couple other players with different cards and gave it a go. I was crashing quite often and have played stable for 3, 4-5 hour sessions now. I think it is fixed but no idea why this worked. I am so happy. Give it a try. I had tried all of those things you did and then some and this is what worked for me.

I used nVidia Inspector to underclock the card.

http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html

I confirm that reducing graphics card base clock works. As mentioned somewhere in previous topics the problem occures with overclocked by manufactures graphic cards. So you need to lower base clock to the value from NVidia specifications of your card.
In my case it is MSI GeForce GTX 660 [N660 TF 2GD5/OC] with boosted base clock 1033 Mhz. So I lowered it to 983 Mhz according to NVidia Geforce GTX 660 specifications. And now I have no problems. (I am even reducing it only to 1003 Mhz now and still have no crashes.)

m2super_ESO

This sounds like a driver issue, if you are on the most current version try an older one it may run more stable for you.

Locksheon

Oh thank god! It's not just me!!! I just took my entire PC apart and reseated everything. I was praying my video card didn't take a dump.

Darkarc

I took the suggestion of downclocking my card by 100Mhz and it seems to have fixed the problem so far for my R9 380 which was factory OC'd, although it's still strange why it only affected this game.

Amerin

Been playing almost every night for a few hours since downclocking my card 30mhz, so about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks, and after 7/18 patch, I am getting black screens again.

I don't have issues with other games either, for what it's worth. Would be nice of Zenimax to look into this.

FogZZZ

Today I forgot to downclock my card before starting the game and had no troubles during play session (2,5 hours)...

e1team

FogZZZ wrote: »

Today I forgot to downclock my card before starting the game and had no troubles during play session (2,5 hours)...

Well, well! Can we hope ZOS done something about the issue?
I will try to set the clocks to default and report back after sufficient testing.

e1team

Amerin wrote: »

Been playing almost every night for a few hours since downclocking my card 30mhz, so about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks, and after 7/18 patch, I am getting black screens again.

I don't have issues with other games either, for what it's worth. Would be nice of Zenimax to look into this.

I downclocked my GPU some 100Mhz. May be you should try D/C it further as well?

Amerin

e1team wrote: »

Amerin wrote: »

Been playing almost every night for a few hours since downclocking my card 30mhz, so about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks, and after 7/18 patch, I am getting black screens again.

I don't have issues with other games either, for what it's worth. Would be nice of Zenimax to look into this.

I downclocked my GPU some 100Mhz. May be you should try D/C it further as well?

I am going to try that!

e1team

No luck
about 1.5 hours of playing, after I set my clocks to default, I crashed to black screen.
The issue not addressed it seems in the end.

YoungJacques69

e1team wrote: »

No luck
about 1.5 hours of playing, after I set my clocks to default, I crashed to black screen.
The issue not addressed it seems in the end.

Did you ever fix this?