Patch 2.6.9 broke my game - introduced constant stuttering, lag and long texture/model loading times

Adventurer

Ever since Saturday's 2.6.9 patch the game has become basically unplayable for me because of stuttering and lag. It's hard to move without having chopping, freezing and/or stuttering frames, whereas before it was smooth and I only sometimes experienced input lag where the keyboard and mouse would freeze for few seconds and then unfreeze.

Also despite having officially quicker texture loading times, they take instead much more longer than before. Before the update, usually only the NPC and other player characters models needed about 3 seconds to load the high quality texture (and in some cases they already were loaded up when you approached them), now it takes double the time. And many overland/outside the city and city textures that were high resolution without loading or took 2-3 seconds maximum to load take instead a long time, so the city and outside look worse. And in some cases, like the ground and grass never load and stay in low resolution all the time. Also everything seems much more jagged, and the outlines sharp and pointy, contrasting with things around them, before they were crisp and blended naturally.

Also NPC textures now load only from the front, so if you go around them and look at their back, it takes additonal 3-5 seconds to load their back. And worse yet, if you look away from various NPCs like the banker at Davon's Watch using the mouselook in 1st or 3rd person, and then look back at them, they are back to the low/minimal quality resolution texture! So turning away from them for even 2 seconds makes them revert to the minimal quality texture.

Models themselves also take longer time to load and appear, whether it's NPCs, crafting stations and their items or other players, who appear as black shadows first way more often.

Here's an example: It took me 14 seconds for the right pillar to load the high resolution texture (I was counting it, since it happens every time I appraoch the stairs now), and additional 5-8 seconds to load the high res texture of the left pillar. Before the patch they always had the high resolution textures and I've played the game every day since Nov 1.

Below is an additional example of how outside of DA and outside of the Ash mountain looks now, with game on medium settings but with high resolution textures selected, and the last picture is from before the patch, the one from Davon's Watch with the sun shining and the fountai with purple flower trees to the left, with exactly the same settings. You can see the difference. According to chat and guild mates I'm not the only one with worse textures and lag introduced by the patch.

If you're experiencing same or similar problems, please post so that ZOS is more likely to investigate this issue.

Adventurer

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Dharnagon

People with connectivity issues, are any of you from outside USA?

Adventurer

Dharnagon wrote: »

People with connectivity issues, are any of you from outside USA?

I use the Europan megaserver as it's the closest.

Adventurer

I've tried going to Bal Foyen tonight and it was almost empty around the docks, and it wasn't stuttering as much like it was during the day (I'm not sure if there were less people on around 11PM GMT+1 or not), however there was still some lag and stuttering that wasn't present before the patch, and when I TPed to Davon's Watch, the full stuttering and lag was there again. But even with the decreased lag it's still worse than before the patch.

xRIVALENx

Canada here, same issues in PVE. Surprisingly Cyrodiil is running like a top though.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Is everyone seeing this issue just in PvE areas?

Gingerbreadhag

I play on the NA Server and since logging in at 420 am I have been booted several times and then I get a message saying an error has occurred and to try again later. I have been able to play but in short spurts.

1208 PST, now if I try to travel anywhere via a waystation I get can't connect to game server and I crash.

pattyLtd

Yes i have these issues aswell

ChandraNalaar

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Is everyone seeing this issue just in PvE areas?

Yeah pvp hasn't been nearly as bad. I left vMA because the stuttering and crashing was so bad.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Can you guys attach your DxDiag, please? Also, can you list which addons you have installed and are using?

xRIVALENx

Same results with no addons, will post my Direct X Diagnostics when I have the opportunity to do so.

Adventurer

I'll test Cyrodiil now and post the results, and attach a Dxdiag.

Wollust

I'm getting tired of the crap that happens every time you do a freaking update.
My game is completely unplayable on my computer. Stuff is frozen, I get booted to the login screen, lag spikes and whatever else.

outsideworld76

Don't worry, this game is also totally lagging out on PS4, so everybody gets the same experience.

DKsUnite

I have had a similar issue since 1T. After playing for more than like 30 minutes i develop stutter, every 10 seconds i drop from 60 fps to 10 for a couple seconds for no reason at all....usually a full reboot is the only way to cure it.... and the lag on the servers is just....

Hoft

Have all the same problems in PvE/PvP areas, with addons and without it, with high and low settings.
- Towns loading up to several minutes in prime time!
- Invisible NPCs, witch appears after some time
- Invisible objects, that blocks the way
- Invisible monsters, witch can silent kill you
- Invisible bosses in dungeons, witch appears after some time (Razor Master Erthas, Lava Queen, Canonreeve Oraneth)
- Arriving new player blocks weapon swap and all dangerous visual effects, untill its model is loaded
- Instadeath in Cyrodiil when you close to a big enemy raid, just because it till not loaded
- Impossible to pass vMA, just because you are hitting by invisible monsters

Wollust wrote: »

I'm getting tired of the crap that happens every time you do a freaking update.

Have same emotions

Just add option to prevent loading all this new equipment models and its textures. Use default styles.
And option to block pets, please.

CREEP

PC master race, I welcome you to console version.

Topso

I have the same issues as the ones above, the only addon I use is skyshards.

Worse day was monday got disconnected 5 times when in a quest instance in Orsinium, the texture issues happens from time to time since saturday. Haven't gotten disconnected since I left Orsinium, but the lag is still in every zone and very random. Yesterday the achievements and completions of world bosses was bugged or delayed with some of the bosses not registering as completed, I want to point out this was not only me it was for all my friends in the group as well and some of us aren't using any addons at all. Got achivements long after they got completed and the lag was really bad not as bad in public dungeons though.

On another note my healing staff is having trouble since patch as well. Sometimes the attack will not be visible but I will still see that I did dmg or got returned mana from heavy attack. And really often the staff won't lock onto target when trying to do a heavy attack, and then I need to do many light attacks until it works again. Don't know if this is has something to do with the patch or some bug with the staff I use.

Adventurer

Topso wrote: »

On another note my healing staff is having trouble since patch as well. Sometimes the attack will not be visible but I will still see that I did dmg or got returned mana from heavy attack. And really often the staff won't lock onto target when trying to do a heavy attack, and then I need to do many light attacks until it works again. Don't know if this is has something to do with the patch or some bug with the staff I use.

This has been happening to me too! But since I've been playing the game for two weeks now, I wasn't sure if it started happening after Saturday's patch or not, and I thought it was just occasional lag on my part.

Often the heavy attack does nothing, and my character just slams the staff into the ground, or he stretches his arm with the staff forward like when you do a light attack and then quickly puts his arm with the staff back and nothing comes out, just a slight fizzling sound is made. So you try holding the heavy attack button few times, and each time he just stretches his arm and brings it back, and nothing happens, or slams the staff into the ground.

Doing a regular light attack usually fixes it, or anything else.

Topso

Adventurer wrote: »

Often the heavy attack does nothing, and my character just slams the staff into the ground, or he stretches his arm with the staff forward like when you do a light attack and then quickly puts his arm with the staff back and nothing comes out, just a slight fizzling sound is made. So you try holding the heavy attack button few times, and each time he just stretches his arm and brings it back, and nothing happens, or slams the staff into the ground.

Doing a regular light attack usually fixes it, or anything else.

Yes this is the exact same problem as I have! No other weapon has this problem and from what I can tell not even destruction staffs (but correct me if i'm wrong as I don't use them often). This is a really frustrating issue as if I am in a group as healer not being able to do heavy attacks keeps me from getting mana back in important situation. Also I have not found a pattern when this issue occur as it can go well for a time and then suddenly start happening.

Adventurer

Topso wrote: »

Yeah, I'm also the healer now and it's bad when you can't regain mana using the resto staff passives!

I've noticed it happening a lot since the weekend (not sure if it was happening before that, I feel like not?), so since you say it started happening for you after Sat's patch, it probably broke the resto staff.