Improving Performance in ESO

RinaldoGandolphi

Hi Folks!

I spent a few weeks doing some testing with ESO and various tests on how Windows 10 handles TCP connections in an attempt to help improve performance in ESO. This is specifically concering PVP and trials. Through some Trial and Error, and Registry Edits I have ESO performance levels on my machine back to pre-lighting patch levels (100 FPS in Stormhaven at prime time around way shrine with 70+ people around.)

Large keeps fights on PC-NA even with organized guilds around my ping never goes over 190 (never turns red anymore), and i never drop below 35-40 FPS.

Saturday Night was the 1st time since 2014 I was able to play in Cyrodiil for 6 hours straight with no disconnects, no more unbearable lag, and abilities actually working. I could actually bar swap weapons while 4-5 people were beating on me and actually be able to defend myself! it was a wonderful feeling. It brought back to me the fun i used to remember!

Now keep in mind, everyone's internet connection and computer is different. You may not get the same level of results from this video as I did, but my friend @Minno saw SIGNIFICANT and DRASTIC changes to his performance after making these changes...he could actually fight at the mile gates with large amounts of players and not lag out and be unable to swap weapons and stuff. None of the changes here will hurt you, they can only help you. How much of an improvement you will get will vary, but I will be shocked if you get no improvement at all.

I hope this helps some players out there get a better game experience. I am doing this, because at the end of the day, I believe we should try and help one another as much as we can. A way to continue paying forward. I hope this is of some use to folks out there. Take it easyand have fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pYJeanHHQ4&feature=youtu.be

Androconium

Bravo.

Hostee

Wish there were some performance tweaks to make for PS4 😭

ssorgatem

Is there a text version?

Not feeling like staring at a video for half an hour to find a couple tweaks from it.

IlCanis_LupuslI

Even thou tbh in the last few months I've been having NO LAG ISSUES Whatsoever! Sure I crash every 30 min but I'll take that over lagging. I was in vmol yesterday on my stamsorc and I wasn't lagging whatsoever it was fantastic. And in pvp I had 40 + Ep running past me(totally ignoring me for some reason) and I had stable fps and no lag whatsoever. Thanks for that it really improved in the last 2 months. @ZOS_GinaBruno
Now we just need a few Bugfixes (caugh savage strength) and everything would be so perfect.
Xbox one S, game on external harddrive, Ventilator aimed in a way at the Air inlet to improve cooling
The upgrade to One s, exteral harddrive, and th Ventilator boosted the performance significantly for some reason.

Minno

ssorgatem wrote: »

Is there a text version?

Not feeling like staring at a video for half an hour to find a couple tweaks from it.

Text could make it easier in a way.

Unless you are comfortable with making windows registry key additions, the video should explain it best.

I had Rinaldo run through the changes over TS and it required me to still send hima screenshot or two because I couldn't seea video showing me how the options looked like.

Edit:
After watching the video in full, I think some text would be nice as well. Maybe partitions in the video going right to the parts showing the changes.

therift

This is a noble effort. Much applause!

Nyladreas

BUMP THIS FOREVER EVERY 5 MINUTES FOLKS!

IT WORKS SOOOOOOOO DAMN WELL! 100% better gameplay experience!

@RinaldoGandolphi you're the real MVP!

@ZOS_GinaBruno Pin this omg

Katahdin

Nyladreas wrote: »

BUMP THIS FOREVER EVERY 5 MINUTES FOLKS!

IT WORKS SOOOOOOOO DAMN WELL! 100% better gameplay experience!

@RinaldoGandolphi you're the real MVP!

@ZOS_GinaBruno Pin this omg

After this reaction, I can't wait to try this

Hostee

Us console plebs can’t make registry edits 😭

Minno

Hostee wrote: »

Us console plebs can’t make registry edits 😭

No, but Rinaldo and I hope this will help ZOS add fixes for you console plebs.

BigBragg

I appreciate the time and effort.

I feel like that video could have been streamlined significantly. 15 minutes to cover a few graphics settings is too much. Try rehearsing what you want to say or even writing a script. This will help keep you from dropping "um" so frequently as well as filler rambling, and can cut out unessary tangents.

This can lead to a more concise message that is easier for the target audience to digest.

RinaldoGandolphi

Thanks for the feedback. The video is so long because I am explaining exactly what those settings do and how and why they are bugged. I don’t like to just tell folks to do something without explaining the why behind it.

I just talked off the top of my head, i probably could have made it shorter, but I don’t want to go back and re-record it 😝

Thanks again for the feedback

RinaldoGandolphi

Nyladreas wrote: »

BUMP THIS FOREVER EVERY 5 MINUTES FOLKS!

IT WORKS SOOOOOOOO DAMN WELL! 100% better gameplay experience!

@RinaldoGandolphi you're the real MVP!

@ZOS_GinaBruno Pin this omg

@Nyladreas

Thank you! I am glad this made a good positive difference for you! This makes trying to help the community a great experience. Thanks again for your kind words.

Kanar

TLDR: turn off all graphics setting except textures and subsampling and your fps will go up.

Part 2: make some windows network changes that won't do anything for performance, because the issue is on akamai & zos' side.

RinaldoGandolphi

Kanar wrote: »

TLDR: turn off all graphics setting except textures and subsampling and your fps will go up.

Part 2: make some windows network changes that won't do anything for performance, because the issue is on akamai & zos' side.

I have no issues with Akamai I’ll post a tracert later showing a sub 50ms pong at primetime. Soon as I’m done with this other yard work 😀

Kanar

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

TLDR: turn off all graphics setting except textures and subsampling and your fps will go up.

Part 2: make some windows network changes that won't do anything for performance, because the issue is on akamai & zos' side.

I have no issues with Akamai I’ll post a tracert later showing a sub 50ms pong at primetime. Soon as I’m done with this other yard work 😀

Your geographical location and what server you play on? It's impossible for you to post those results to ZOS server because once it goes into akamai, it's a black hole.

Edit to give an example: I live in Chicago; ZOS servers are in TX. ZoS uses akamai, which routes traffic to zos servers. I get an IP of akamai servers on East coast (closest to me by # of hops maybe), even though my traffic is going opposite direction of what it should. Then when my traffic goes to akamai in NY or w/e, it then gets routed on akamai private network to zos servers in TX.

Afaik EU servers don't use akamai and therefore their pings are better than NA servers.

Edit 2: 50ms basic ping (measured from ping not game client) is actually really bad for an online service like video game. We shouldn't give zos a pass because you can get a 50ms ping to their server. That should be 20 if you're on a cable+ connection.

Kanar

This image is from an investigation I did in February. I was having terrible latency spikes which ended up being my modem.




My ping to ZOS servers is 50ms but in game my ping is 90-120. Even at 90 in-game ping, cyro still is unresponsive because the server is struggling to keep up due to the heavy load in large battles.

As you can see, going into Akamai my ping is at 35ms. By the time it gets to ZOS it is 50ms. That +15ms is added by akamai. To every single packet.

Minno

Kanar wrote: »

This image is from an investigation I did in February. I was having terrible latency spikes which ended up being my modem.




My ping to ZOS servers is 50ms but in game my ping is 90-120. Even at 90 in-game ping, cyro still is unresponsive because the server is struggling to keep up due to the heavy load in large battles.

As you can see, going into Akamai my ping is at 35ms. By the time it gets to ZOS it is 50ms. That +15ms is added by akamai. To every single packet.

Should be noted that disabling the Nagle algorithm, you would be essentially bypassing the function where your computer collects a bunch of smaller packets to compile into one giant packet, and waits for acknowledgement of receiving those packets before it sends the full packet. Maybe do the fixes above and bring us graphs to compare? Would be cool to see those!

And some extra info I found during lunch today, as this topic is interesting.

Original paper by Nagle:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc896

"The congestion control problems associated with pure datagram networks are difficult, but effective solutions exist. If IP /TCP networks are to be operated under heavy load, TCP implementations must address several key issues in ways at least as effective as the ones described here."

Reason this function is important, as it protects the health of the internet but stopping badly created applications from sending ALOT of packets creating a traffic jam:
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/papers/NagleDelayedAck/

1998 paper requesting the original Nagle Algorithm be updated since it doesn't work for all applications and that the health of the internet is important (basically advocates for a rule that allows a packet to go to the destination without waiting for a confirmation of its receipt but only one time use):
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-minshall-nagle-01

"Without the Nagle algorithm, TCP would transmit a packet, with a small amount of data, in response to each of the application's writes to TCP. With the Nagle algorithm, a first small packet will be transmitted, then subsequent writes from the application will be buffered at the sending TCP until either i) enough application data has accumulated to enable TCP to transmit a maximum sized packet, or ii) the initial small packet is acknowledged by the receiving TCP. This limits the number of small packets to one per round trip time.

While the current Nagle algorithm does a very good job of protecting the internet from such applications, there are other applications, such as request-response protocols (with HTTP [RFC2068] being a topical example) in which the current Nagle algorithm interacts with TCP's ``delayed ACK'' policy [RFC1122] to produce non-optimal results."

And that doesn't go without precedence regarding how gamers feel about having their packets waiting around for a server connection (especially in 2018 where many networks are now offering really high speeds/bandwidths for "cheap"):
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/106661-An-Old-Trick-to-Improve-Latency!-Disabling-your-Nagle-Algorithm.

"To the best of my knowledge, the short of it is that the Nagle Algorithm is a kind of flood-gate process your computer does that restricts your potential to send/receive incoming packets (tiny bits of data sent across the internet to your computer). As the article above describes, it was invented to help with antiquated connections like dial-up not get bogged down or overloaded. It might be fine for web browsing and such, but in The Navel (Hard), ain't no body got time for that. Disabling this algorithm boosts your performance by unrestricting the flow of data your computer can receive. (If someone can explain it better than this, by all means "

I am not network master either. Just something interesting I found after Rinaldo showed me this. Do I care about the health of the internet? Maybe, maybe not. I do know since 1983-85 when the original papers were published and implemented into practice, we have had multiple services that demand faster responses to how the computers sends/receives packets and also faster networks than the old dial-up networks used to us.

Kanar

You've convinced me it may give a benefit. Probably not in ping time but possibly in responsiveness (packets will take the same time to travel but since they are sent more often, without delay, there may be more responsiveness). I'll try it out but don't plan to get PingPlotter data - I would need to run it again during primetime to get new baseline data with my new computer hardware and modem, and then run it after the proposed changes at similar primetime hours doing similar activities...eh just too much work-like activities.

I will say based on my previous investigation, in wireshark it is clear that several connections are set up and then maintained to stream data over them. There's not a lot of opening/closing connections after the initial setup.

RinaldoGandolphi

Kanar wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

TLDR: turn off all graphics setting except textures and subsampling and your fps will go up.

Part 2: make some windows network changes that won't do anything for performance, because the issue is on akamai & zos' side.

I have no issues with Akamai I’ll post a tracert later showing a sub 50ms pong at primetime. Soon as I’m done with this other yard work 😀

Your geographical location and what server you play on? It's impossible for you to post those results to ZOS server because once it goes into akamai, it's a black hole.

Edit to give an example: I live in Chicago; ZOS servers are in TX. ZoS uses akamai, which routes traffic to zos servers. I get an IP of akamai servers on East coast (closest to me by # of hops maybe), even though my traffic is going opposite direction of what it should. Then when my traffic goes to akamai in NY or w/e, it then gets routed on akamai private network to zos servers in TX.

Afaik EU servers don't use akamai and therefore their pings are better than NA servers.

Edit 2: 50ms basic ping (measured from ping not game client) is actually really bad for an online service like video game. We shouldn't give zos a pass because you can get a 50ms ping to their server. That should be 20 if you're on a cable+ connection.

You can see the 1st two hops inside Akamai are below 32ms which is an very excellent time.

The "Request Timed Out Messages" are not Blackholes, they just mean the routers are filtering ICMP Code 3 Destination Host Unreachable and ICMP Code 11 Time Exceeded packets. The packets still traverse the network just fine. As a 10 year Network admin, I never block those codes on my devices because it breaks things like PMTUD(Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery) which forces connections to fall back on other methods that a re much slower.

I am not however disagreeing with you. I do fully believe that some people are having issues with traffic with Akamai. I think geographic location and ISP plays a part in that. I just may be lucky with my location and ISP, that I haven't had any problems with ESO after they put that Akamai scrubbing anti-ddos stuff on their network, but I am sure a lot of people do. I really hope they get that issue ironed out for the folks who are having issues.

I'd post more, but im tired...worked all day, came home, mowed my lawn and painted half my house(hate exterior painting but it needs done before winter) yuck...

Great charts though, def good work on your part. ZOS should be able to use that information to help nail down peoples problems with Akamai.

MLGProPlayer

View distance has by far the biggest impact on performance of any graphics setting.

You can download this add-on to automatically adjust view distance (and a few other settings) when your FPS dips low.

Turning down the view distance comes at a price though. Your game will look like it came out in 2004.

Androconium

ZOS should be able to use that information to help nail down peoples problems with Akamai.

Send them the bill.
After all, we are not communists...

Valrien

Does anyone have a TL;DW for me in text form?

RinaldoGandolphi

Good find @Minno

I wasa going to post something similar but you beat me to it.

Windows is built for stability not really performance. Nagles and delayed acknowledgements were put into help TCP function on a larger scale and reduce the amount of overhead on the protocol. Those two TCP options are great for bandwidth. Everyone wants to be able to stream videos, listen to music, social media, etc...and utilizing bandwidth in the most effiectn way possible with delayed acks and nagling makes sense as latency doesn't matter much when it comes to streaming video...my Aunt streams Netflix flawlessly with a Satellite connection with 270ms average latency.

however, online games like ESO, latency matters much more then bandwidth does, and disabling those two settings will make your network more chatty, but it also means your not holding more then 1 packet in the buffer before sending off, so its a trade...streaming and such will suffer a little with them turned off, but it shouldn;t be a huge deal. folks can always delete the reg entries if they find they don't like it for some reason.

RinaldoGandolphi

Valrien wrote: »

Does anyone have a TL;DW for me in text form?

Yes,

Disable all settings except Grass, High Texture, and High Subsample

Watch the last 4 mins of the video that shows you how to edit registry to change TCP behavior.

Valrien

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Valrien wrote: »

Does anyone have a TL;DW for me in text form?

Yes,

Disable all settings except Grass, High Texture, and High Subsample

Watch the last 4 mins of the video that shows you how to edit registry to change TCP behavior.

Does "all settings" include the sliders? I.e., particles and draw?

Valrien

Also, I'm not much of a tech guy. What are the implications of messing with the Windows settings outside of ESO?

What will it "do" to my computer, effectively?

chris211

i believe this program does this for you ever since i started using this i very rarely dc from pvp http://www.leatrix.com/leatrix-latency-fix

Red_Feather

30+ minutes and in the first seconds heard 'um' 'ah' so many times.

It's really hard to ever watch something like that regardless of claims.

RinaldoGandolphi

Red_Feather wrote: »

30+ minutes and in the first seconds heard 'um' 'ah' so many times.

It's really hard to ever watch something like that regardless of claims.

My apologies, I was just getting over a cold and had worked over 27 hours in the two days prior to that. Including a 16 hour shift.( I’m actually drinking coffee during the video to stay awake) I don’t normally talk like that when I’m actually rested.

My apologies I didn’t meet your standards. I’ll do better next time.......