FPS drop over time - Not DirectX related

Cambion2401

Alright, so the FPS drop over time thread is getting pretty long, and has two problems in one now, and one has a solution. So this one is mainly an extension of the FPS drop over time thread, for the not solved part.
Old thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/241603/fps-drop-over-time#latest

If you have FPS issues, please first install the DirectX SDK from microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812
Windows 10 emulates everything below DirectX12 instead of running it native, which can give FPS issues over time. It's Microsofts fault, not the developers (Zenimax Online). Any game below DX12 will get a boost from this, so it's highly recommended for any W10 game pc.

However, after this, FPS issues in certain area's still appear. I can't walk through Anvil without dropping from 200 (increased my cap, default is 100), till 25. The game acts like it freezes every few seconds. Multiple people had problems in cities. For me, it doesn't seem to matter really what time I play or how much people are online. I'm guessing either the server or the engine is giving problems. It's not that my PC can't handle it.

I'm running the next specs:
GTX1080 clocked at 2075
I5-6600K clocked at 4.2
MSI Tomahawk AC motherboard
16GB DDR4 RAM
740W PSU
250GB SSD (Windows)
2TB HDD (ESO)
Windows 10

Zawlee

Just curious, is your PC running Windows 10?

Cambion2401

Zawlee wrote: »

Just curious, is your PC running Windows 10?

Yes, Edited my specs to reflect that. But the Windows 10 problem was the DirectX problem.

SiliconShadow

I hope zos release a dx12 engine sooner rather than later.

I have a much beefier system than the one you described, running an i7 extreme processor, 64GB ram, raid0 ssds and a 1080gtx. It depresses me to see while sat in grahtwood for even a short while my DPS diminishes down to below 20fps.

My CPU and GPU are never above 20% usage, I have tried to also remove all addons, play with all sorts of driver versions, dx redists and everything I can for Windows 10 and nothing works.

While I am tempted to run a side by side install, I cannot fully justify this as a solution for my scenario as I work on this PC and require it to be on Windows 10.

For me the only holdout is that they implement a DX12 solution sooner rather than later.

b101uk

even though Windows 10 emulates DX11, this still doesn't make it Microsofts fault rather than Zenimax Online problem in not coding properly, I have lots of DX11 and lower games and NONE of them have problems with the way that Windows 10 emulates DX11/10/9/etc that causes a loss of performance after ~2 hours because the FPS drops to 20fps everywhere.

the problem IS for the developers (Zenimax Online) to fix within their code/engine, other DX11 games made by other parts of Zenimax seam to handle Windows 10 just fine, like Fallout 3 and 4, Skyrim etc, so if it was such a big problem with windows 10 emulating DX11 etc, then it would be more prevalent, rather than being none existent for me in ALL my other games, with ESO being the ONLY one exhibiting this problem.

in short it is Zenimax Onlines problem to fix in ESO.

Cambion2401

b101uk wrote: »

even though Windows 10 emulates DX11, this still doesn't make it Microsofts fault rather than Zenimax Online problem in not coding properly, I have lots of DX11 and lower games and NONE of them have problems with the way that Windows 10 emulates DX11/10/9/etc that causes a loss of performance after ~2 hours because the FPS drops to 20fps everywhere.

The thing is you can just install DX9-11 manually and those DirectX related problems are over (which is why I said install that first). There are more games with problems, although not as big. And any game in older DX formats will get a boost from installing them. In the original FPS drop over time thread we found installing it manually (with developer distributions, as normal ones refuse to install "because you have a newer one installed") fixes the DX related issues. An emulator is pretty heavy compared to the original, so it's deemed to give problems on something as heavy as gaming. It may not always give problems, but performance will always drop, which makes an emulator a rather odd choice for something that's needed to render 3D. I blame Microsoft for making a bad decision here.

When a program needs to make direct calls to DirectX files bigger problems can also arise. ENB will often CTD on loading without installing the developers DirectX because it ask directly for DX files which obviously, an emulator does not have. If the engine tries to load something particular from DirectX that the emulator can't probably send out, huge problems can come to exist. Zenimax Online could theoretically try to avoid doing it, but doing things more indirectly generally means having less optimized code (and games are generally very badly optimized the last few years), which is never a good thing. It would be nice if Zenimax Online could make a notion somewhere to install the developer SDKs when having FPS issues tho.

We can not know for sure if it's extremely bad optimization of problems with direct calls to DirectX as we can't check the engine on those points (well we can but that's kinda illigal), but just know it isn't necessary Zenimax Online having made a bad program on de DirectX part. However, seeing it runs well on W10 with DirectX manually installed, and the difference between problems and not is too big to be from the workload of an emulator, I'm guessing some direct calls to DirectX are giving problems. That's my educated guess as someone who works with coding every day, take it for what you will.

SiliconShadow wrote: »

I have a much beefier system than the one you described, running an i7 extreme processor, 64GB ram, raid0 ssds and a 1080gtx. It depresses me to see while sat in grahtwood for even a short while my DPS diminishes down to below 20fps.

My CPU and GPU are never above 20% usage, I have tried to also remove all addons, play with all sorts of driver versions, dx redists and everything I can for Windows 10 and nothing works.

While I am tempted to run a side by side install, I cannot fully justify this as a solution for my scenario as I work on this PC and require it to be on Windows 10.

My CPU and GPU are also rarely completely used, and more around those heights, even when running 64bit client. Wonder if anyone can confirm these issues with card from before the gtx10** series or an AMD. I never had problems with non-DX12 games before myself, so I doubt the same engine in DX12 would fix it. Yet it would indeed be nice if the game would be updated eventually.

I've ran Linux next to W10, but even arch won't play this game nicely (or more, you may be happy if its starts through WineHQ). I refuse to buy another Windows code just for one game, that's ridiculous, and should not be the solution for a problem made by the game developer.

catch22atplay

Only been playing 8 days or so. Had that weird fps drop after a few loading screens/map changes. This was using the 64 bit client. I switched to the 32 bit client and it resolved the issue. Only problem was the 32 bit client seemed to perform between the high and low of the 64 bit client. I made some changes to my settings and went back to the 64 bit client and all is well now. Well at least there's no drop in performance after a few map changes. Could also be the map loading change they made. /shrug

I have a 2600k running at 4.4ghz and a 970 factory overclocked only. fps is fairly decent. Anvil is not like yours where it drops to 25 fps. It's typically at 60fpsm as i have it framerate limited to 60 via nvprofileinspector. In the busier area of anvil i will see dips into the high 40s. Main square facing south seems the worst. Biggest help is lowering shadows and water. And the user settings. Look at my settings and compare them to yours. btw check all the settings. maxcorestouse as one example. And i don't have a drop in performance over time. Not seeing any sort of memory leak here. I also play with several addons. Was getting that annoying warning about not enough memory for addons so increased that too as below.

SET GamepadPreferredEnabled "0"
SET MouseRawInput "1"
SET MouseSensitivityFirstPerson "0.50000000"
SET MouseSensitivityThirdPerson "1.00000000"
SET MouseSmoothing "0"
SET InvertMouseWheel "1"
SET InvertMouseY "1"
SET InvertMouseX "1"
SET HDR_BRIGHTNESS "0.50000000"
SET DistantFoliageEnabled "1"
SET PFX_SUPPRESS_DISTANCE_v2 "100.00000000"
SET PFX_GLOBAL_MAXIMUM "1024"
SET MULTI_GPU_CHECK "1"
SET CachedRLREnabled "1"
SET CachedReflectionResolution "0"
SET CachedShadowFiltering "4"
SET ScreenshotFormat.2 "PNG"
SET PregameScreenAdjustEnabled "0"
SET PregameGammaCheckEnabled "0"
SET HardwareCheckEnabled.3 "0"
SET SUB_SAMPLING "2"
SET REFLECTION_QUALITY_v3 "1"
SET PARTICLE_DENSITY "3"
SET HIGH_RESOLUTION_SHADOWS "0"
SET SHADOWS "2"
SET GAMMA_ADJUSTMENT "100"
SET VIEW_DISTANCE "2.00000000"
SET GPUSmoothingFrames "0"
SET MIP_LOAD_SKIP_LEVELS "0"
SET RAIN_WETNESS "0"
SET LENS_FLARE "1"
SET GOD_RAYS_v2 "1"
SET ANTI_ALIASING_v2 "1"
SET AMBIENT_OCCLUSION "1"
SET COLOR_GRADING_v1 "0"
SET BLOOM "1"
SET DEPTH_OF_FIELD "0"
SET TONE_MAPPING "1"
SET COLOR_CORRECTION "1"
SET SOFT_ALPHA "1"
SET DISTORTION "1"
SET CHARACTER_LIGHTING "1"
SET DIFFUSE_2_MAPS "1"
SET DETAIL_MAPS "1"
SET NORMAL_MAPS "1"
SET SPECULAR_MAPS "1"
SET CLUTTER_2D "1"
SET SIMPLE_SHADERS "0"
SET WATER_FOAM "1"
SET VSYNC_INTERVAL "1"
SET VSYNC "0"
SET MAX_ANISOTROPY "3"
SET PreferMaximizedWindow "0"
SET PreferExclusiveFullscreen "0"
SET FULLSCREEN_v5 "1"
SET FullscreenHeight "1080"
SET FullscreenWidth "1920"
SET WindowedHeight "768"
SET WindowedWidth "1024"
SET HousingEditorSurfaceDragEnabled "1"
SET CONSOLE_ENHANCED_RENDER_QUALITY "0"
SET ShowPetsAtCharacterSelect.2 "1"
SET TrialAccountType3SeenVersion "0"
SET TrialAccountType2SeenVersion "0"
SET TrialAccountType1SeenVersion "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPetDoTEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPetDamageEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPointGainsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingStatusEffectsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingHoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingHealingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingDoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingDamageEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetHoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetHealingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetDoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetDamageEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingStatusEffectsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingHoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingHealingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingDoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingDamageEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextEnabled "1"
SET SiegeCameraChoice "0"
SET IsServerSelected "1"
SET SelectedServer "0"
SET OverscanHeightAdjustment "0"
SET OverscanWidthAdjustment "0"
SET OverscanYOffset "0"
SET OverscanXOffset "0"
SET CharacterSelectForceAllCharacterPreloads "0"
SET PlayerStandInsMaxPerFrame "8"
SET PlayerStandInsEnabled.2 "1"
SET FOVChangesAllowed "1"
SET AgreedToPEGI "1"
SET LuaMemoryLimitMB "128"
SET GamepadSensitivityFirstPerson.2 "0.72000003"
SET GamepadSensitivityThirdPerson.2 "0.85000002"
SET GamepadInvertX "0"
SET GamepadInvertY "0"
SET GamepadVibrationEnabled "1"
SET SOUND_ENABLED "1"
SET FOOTSTEPS_VOLUME "50.00000000"
SET FOOTSTEPS_ENABLED "1"
SET SPEAKER_SETUP "0"
SET VOICE_CHAT_VOLUME "65.00000000"
SET BACKGROUND_AUDIO "0"
SET VO_VOLUME "100.00000000"
SET VO_ENABLED "1"
SET UI_VOLUME "60.00000000"
SET UI_ENABLED "1"
SET AMBIENT_VOLUME "60.00000000"
SET AMBIENT_ENABLED "1"
SET SFX_VOLUME "60.00000000"
SET SFX_ENABLED "1"
SET MUSIC_VOLUME "20.00000000"
SET MUSIC_ENABLED "1"
SET AUDIO_VOLUME "100.00000000"
SET AUDIO_ENABLED "1"
SET TooltipFilter "-1"
SET TooltipNumOptions "2"
SET Language.2 "en"
SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"
SET PatchDataPath "game:/GameData/"
SET CacheDataPath "machine:/Cache/"
SET ViewedAddOnEULAVersion "5"
SET AcceptedAddOnEULAVersion "5"
SET AcceptedCodeOfConductVersion "1"
SET AcceptedPrivacyPolicyVersion "2"
SET AcceptedTOSVersion "2"
SET AcceptedEULAVersion "3"
SET DirectionalDamageIndictorVisibleInThirdPerson "1"
SET CameraFramingTransitionEnabled "1"
SET SkipPregameVideos "1"
SET HasPlayedPregameVideo "1"
SET AssassinationKillCamera "1"
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01000000"
SET ParticlesEnabled "1"
SET MaxCoresToUse "8"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "-1"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "-1"
SET FreeUnusedGrannyFileSections.2 "0"
SET IsTrustedMachine "1"
SET RememberAccountName "1"
SET AccountName "blahblahblah"
SET LastPlatform "Live"
SET LastRealm "NA Megaserver"
SET CustomUIScale "1.00000000"
SET UseCustomUIScale.2 "0"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapEnabled "1"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapTimeWindow.2 "185"
SET ClampGroundTargetEnabled "1"
SET MonsterTellsEnabled "1"
SET CameraZoomDistancesSynced "1"
SET SiegeCameraZoomDistance "6.00000000"
SET WeaponsOutCameraZoomDistance "4.00000000"
SET WeaponsSheathedCameraZoomDistance "4.00000000"
SET MaxNetworkWriteBuffer "10485760"
SET MaxNetworkReadBuffer "10485760"

Cambion2401

I will take a look at my settings, but with my pc, I should be able to play far above ultra. If the settings help, I may ad least be able to point the exact problem down a bit better. And, you know, be able play...

catch22atplay

It's got nothing to do with your setup. It's an MMO and it isn't dx12. Most MMOs perform very similar. And if it was dx12 it would still need to be programmed to take advantage of the performance improvements. If someone uses a 960 or better the limit will be the cpu. The game uses about 30% cpu.

My last post i actually meant Abah's landing and not Anvil. In Anvil i'm getting mostly 80-100fps (100fps capped). I tried sprinting on my horse thru town and after a couple passes the lowest it hit was a quick dip to 59fps. So ya not sure why Anvil gives you that much of a problem. I had to decrease my 2600k to 4.3ghz as it wouldn't boot this morning. Guess after about 5 years the O/C is finally decreasing. The Anvil test was done after lowering to 4.3ghz btw.

Cambion2401

I don't know how, but it's suddenly fixed. Staying strait on 60fps (Vsync) now. Didn't change a thing, only had a game update. Did do something I guess. Anvil is no problem at all anymore, and I haven't found a new problem yet.

aurly

Cambion2401 wrote: »

I don't know how, but it's suddenly fixed. Staying strait on 60fps (Vsync) now. Didn't change a thing, only had a game update. Did do something I guess. Anvil is no problem at all anymore, and I haven't found a new problem yet.

I noticed some improvements as well. There were a few places where I would often drop down to below 60 FPS, but are smooth now since last week. The patch must've done something I guess?