Strange FPS issues on high-end PC

Wanderica

Hi all,

I've been having frequent FPS drops playing ESO, and I hope we can get to the bottom of it. A little research says this might not be possible, but here we go anyway.

First, some system specs:

Ryzen 2700X
GTX 1080Ti
16 GB 3200 MHz DDR4
1 TB Samsung 960 nVME
750 Watt power supply
All on a custom loop.

Monitor: 3440 x 1440 Ultrawide 120 Hz
Secondary: 40" 4K Samsung TV

I don't think this is a hardware issue on a 4 year old game, but it could be a CPU issue if ESO is dual core up to 4 threads, but I don't remember having this issue before upgrading my CPU earlier this year. When I first load in to the game, I'm locked at 100 FPS. The only time this will dip is when I'm in a populated area (such as a major hub). This would be consistent with CPU load in any MMO, so no biggie. After 30-45 minutes of normal gameplay, my FPS will suddenly drop from 100 all the way down to the 25 - 40 range. GPU load during this time will only be in the 40 - 60% range while CPU load will be 22-26%. On a 16 thread CPU, that would be 4 threads. Does anyone know how many threads ESO can utilize? The only "fix" I can find for this is a restart. Sometimes, loading into a new area will do the trick. I've played with all of the graphical settings, disabled addons, and even tried switching a graphics setting to force a "reload" during the drop to no avail. I've tried shutting down as many processes as I can, setting core affinity, and priority in task manager. No dice.

I did run a quick experiment, and it confused me even more. I ported to a wayshrine out in the middle of Grahtwood, where I'm currently questing, restarted the client and waited without moving the camera. I started at a constant 100 FPS. After about 45 minutes or so, my FPS dropped sharply to the expected 30-45 FPS. Porting to Daggerfall and back fixed the issue.

I only have one final thought on this. In the past, I played a little LotRO, and due to limitations within that old game engine, it is mostly single threaded. This causes a major CPU bottleneck in some of its newer areas on even the most beastly processors of today. Is it possible ESO could be seeing a similar CPU bottleneck? In this case, it wouldn't necessarily be a game engine limitation, but it could still be a bottleneck.

Does anyone running an Intel CPU have this issue? How about someone running 1440p on a 1070 or less? Has anyone tried disabling Hyperthreading (or SMT) to force each thread on its own core? It's not gamebreaking by any means, at least not outside of groups, but it is pretty annoying when it drops below the GSync minimum and gets very choppy. I should easily be able to maintain 100+ FPS in this game.

evildemoncat

I just got a new rig, MSI Apache Pro, and it was running the game great until the recent patch. Now I can't hit above 35 FPS. I have a 1070 card in this thing. My old MSI Dominator, with it's 870, sits 45-55 FPS on ESO, and my brother's 960 is the same. I am thinking it's an issue with the 10-series Nvidia cards at the moment. Unless yours is a completely different issue than mine.

--EDC

Ratty1SFT

I am currently experiencing the same problems with a GTX 970 (in combination with an i7 2600k). About two years I have played with 2160p at ~60 fps without any problems. I also suspect that one of the last patches is the cause.

danno8

Here is my thread from 2 weeks ago:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/435266/fps-degradation-over-time#latest

And a new one over in General:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/437779/game-performance-decreases-over-time-making-the-game-unplayable-especially-in-raids#latest

It looks like others are beginning to notice this. I am sad, but also happy to no longer be alone on this issue.

danno8

Ratty1SFT wrote: »

I am currently experiencing the same problems with a GTX 970 (in combination with an i7 2600k). About two years I have played with 2160p at ~60 fps without any problems. I also suspect that one of the last patches is the cause.

Sam here. No problems basically since launch, then 2-3 weeks ago noticed that my FPS, which would never dip below 30, was suddenly at 15-20 FPS in completely empty areas with no one around.

Relogging, rezoning and restarting fixes the problem. But when I am in Cyrodiil at primetime I can't really do any of those things without risking a queue.

I have tried no addons (removing folders completely), low settings, monitoring CPU, GPU etc... nothing seems to help and my CPU and GPU are barely breaking a sweat.

Wanderica

Interesting. Thanks for all the replies. It's good to know I'm not alone at least. I just recently returned (2 days ago), and have never played ESO on this rig. I was always GPU limited on my previous builds, and assumed I was looking at a strange CPU limited scenario this round. Some reports even point to the PS4 having issues as well, so it's looking more like maybe the last patch altered something. If that's the case, I hope they find it fast. 20 FPS is maddening when you're used to 100+

Splintz

Did you find out what the problem is? I'm having the same issue.

danno8

Splintz wrote: »

Did you find out what the problem is? I'm having the same issue.

Unfortunately it seems this is a long standing issue with no real solution.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/241603/fps-drop-over-time#latest

djl1tr

Ryzen 1600
GTX 1070
16 GB 3200 MHz DDR4
250 Gb Samsung 860
650 Watt power supply
Monitor: 1920 x 1080 72 Hz
FPS ~ 40

ATomiX96

singlecore performance >>> everything else.
Because the game uses an old Framework without proper multicore support. (lets call it pseudo-multicore support)

Perwulf

My specs are somewhat lower than yours and it's overclocked yet I don't experience this.

I7-8700K 4.4GHz
GTX 1060 6gb
250gb 860 EVO M.2.
16gb DDR4 2400

I'm always playing at Cyrodiil where the huge battles are and I often switch areas for guild traders but never once I feel the need to relaunch my client. The only massive FPS drop I have encountered is under massive battles in Cyrodiil which is naturally tasking but I'm also playing at highest settings so it's understandable. I don't experience FPS drop beyond that.

However, back then when my HDD is dying, the game became utterly slow that my FPS drops over time and I'm starting to experience lots of texture popups. There's also a time where I bought a faulty ram stick and my game also experienced FPS drops over time, slow loading, and crashes. So try checking for bad sectors, reformatting usually fixes the problem. Then do memcheck.

spartycus

bump any solutions? Thinking about leaving game again.

Crixus8000

My pc is new and a few weeks ago could handle the game maxed with steady 100 fps, now it's around 80 and get huge drops often, even with low graphics. No idea what changed.

ZOS_Bill

As this thread is several months old the discussion is being closed. Listed below is a help article for performance issues in ESO. If none of the troubleshooting steps below help, you can contact customer support. You can start a new thread if there are no active discussions on this topic.

What do I do if ESO is having performance issues on PC?