Improving Performance in ESO

RinaldoGandolphi

I’ll try and re-record a much shorter version tommorow if I don’t get called out on anything after my normal working shift.

Hostee

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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.

What IP address is that, that you guys are using to show tracert and pathping information? The IP address I have for NA is 198.20.198.110

BRogueNZ

wong thred

RouDeR

This video is jiberish, nothing new and a LoT of wrong things like saying Sun Rays are CPU demanding - they are ONLY GPU related. And dumb things like set your draw distance to 0 ( and make your game 1999 patato) is just laughable.
The second tweak with the regedit will have 0 impact on your lag in Cyro because it is not on your side.I play with around 120-150 ping in Cyro and it has nothing to do with the unresponsivness of the skills when 10+ pple are beating on you.
So basically you will get some more fps in exchange of garabage looking game. Isnt that the dream of eveey MMO player ???? xD

ScardyFox

Good old ESO forums.

Someone makes a video trying to be helpful and they get descended upon by goose-stepping harpies.

And people say there's a toxicity problem here *gasp*

Wonder why.

Red_Feather

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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.......

No need to do that. You are wasting your time.

OrdoHermetica

RouDeR wrote: »

This video is jiberish, nothing new and a LoT of wrong things like saying Sun Rays are CPU demanding - they are ONLY GPU related. And dumb things like set your draw distance to 0 ( and make your game 1999 patato) is just laughable.
The second tweak with the regedit will have 0 impact on your lag in Cyro because it is not on your side.I play with around 120-150 ping in Cyro and it has nothing to do with the unresponsivness of the skills when 10+ pple are beating on you.
So basically you will get some more fps in exchange of garabage looking game. Isnt that the dream of eveey MMO player ???? xD

It's only gibberish if you don't understand what he's talking about. And clearly you don't.

Banana

Ill give the network settings ago. But not the graphic settings. I like pretty

killahsin

+1 I bookmarked this and set the reg settings, will post here after i test it out the next time I'm in a cyrodil ball group and in a 3 faction keep war.

Hämähäkki

Ps4 performance is horrible. Loadscreens and disconnects are really getting out of hand especially in PvP.
Oh...and the sad part is, nobody on ZOS's side really cares.

OrdoHermetica

Banana wrote: »

Ill give the network settings ago. But not the graphic settings. I like pretty

I'm with you. Plus, I have a pretty beefy machine, so it's really not the source of most of my slowdowns (and I'm also comfortable with 30+ FPS, so long as it's consistent). Network settings, though... yeah, those are worth investigating.

Coatmagic

For those of you asking for a text options ~>
(Did not watch video; just putting this here for those asking.)

https://alithlegion.com/index.php/forum/General-Help/63582-guide-tweaking-eso-performance-graphics-stutter

ZoS doesn't give us access via the in game menu to do proper performance tweaks without making the game look like crap and that still isn't enough tbh. Manual editing of the ini file works wonderfully well (still no way to turn down/off those stupid spell animations though ~ bad ZoS!)

Good luck!

Minno

Banana wrote: »

Ill give the network settings ago. But not the graphic settings. I like pretty

That's fine! Those settings were for people that have FPS performance issues.

Minno

Red_Feather wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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.......

No need to do that. You are wasting your time.

Lol

RouDeR wrote: »

This video is jiberish, nothing new and a LoT of wrong things like saying Sun Rays are CPU demanding - they are ONLY GPU related. And dumb things like set your draw distance to 0 ( and make your game 1999 patato) is just laughable.
The second tweak with the regedit will have 0 impact on your lag in Cyro because it is not on your side.I play with around 120-150 ping in Cyro and it has nothing to do with the unresponsivness of the skills when 10+ pple are beating on you.
So basically you will get some more fps in exchange of garabage looking game. Isnt that the dream of eveey MMO player ???? xD

So you'd rather enjoy your game crawl like a lawn mower in a Nascar race?

I thought we as a gaming community held the premise that graphics does not equal fun? And a major pain for players in this game is their game not communicating to the server all at once.
Guess I'm wrong with the gen z'ers coming in lol.

RinaldoGandolphi

Minno wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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.......

No need to do that. You are wasting your time.

Lol

RouDeR wrote: »

This video is jiberish, nothing new and a LoT of wrong things like saying Sun Rays are CPU demanding - they are ONLY GPU related. And dumb things like set your draw distance to 0 ( and make your game 1999 patato) is just laughable.
The second tweak with the regedit will have 0 impact on your lag in Cyro because it is not on your side.I play with around 120-150 ping in Cyro and it has nothing to do with the unresponsivness of the skills when 10+ pple are beating on you.
So basically you will get some more fps in exchange of garabage looking game. Isnt that the dream of eveey MMO player ???? xD

So you'd rather enjoy your game crawl like a lawn mower in a Nascar race?

I thought we as a gaming community held the premise that graphics does not equal fun? And a major pain for players in this game is their game not communicating to the server all at once.
Guess I'm wrong with the gen z'ers coming in lol.

@Minno

LOL!

its all good!

I don't think we hold graphics in as much importance then others, like anything else its a trade.

Kanar

Hostee wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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.

What IP address is that, that you guys are using to show tracert and pathping information? The IP address I have for NA is 198.20.198.110

If you run Wireshark while launching ESO, it will make connection to a few zos servers. One is crown store but others are the game server IPs.

Instead of Wireshark you could just use one of the windows tools, tracert or nmap or something I can't remember. It lists all the connections.

Edit: netstat is the tool I was thinking of.

Minno

Coatmagic wrote: »

For those of you asking for a text options ~>
(Did not watch video; just putting this here for those asking.)

https://alithlegion.com/index.php/forum/General-Help/63582-guide-tweaking-eso-performance-graphics-stutter

ZoS doesn't give us access via the in game menu to do proper performance tweaks without making the game look like crap and that still isn't enough tbh. Manual editing of the ini file works wonderfully well (still no way to turn down/off those stupid spell animations though ~ bad ZoS!)

Good luck!

I did not know this existed!

Really insightful!

fred4

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

I’ll try and re-record a much shorter version tommorow if I don’t get called out on anything after my normal working shift.

As someone working in IT, I appreciated the longer video with your comments and explanations. Thank you!

danno8

Wanted to come on here and say I tried the network changes today and played for several hours tonight.

I noticed no difference in lag, ping or responsiveness. The servers simply choke when zillions of players are online and no tweak on your end can really help that.

As for the graphics changes, well yah, turn everything down and you can squeeze out some extra FPS. But for most people with modern rigs that won't do much. FPS isn't a problem (unless you have the annoying "FPS drops after 30 minutes bug" which I do, but no graphics changes help that) unless you have a really old setup.

Thanks for the suggestions and videos, but as usual for myself, tweak of this nature just don't resolve anything.

LadyLethalla

Hostee wrote: »

Us console plebs can’t make registry edits 😭

Us even poorer Australian console peasants are even worse off ;_;

Jayman1000

There are a few helpful tips in that video. 26:15 part of the video is pretty useless as it just talks about the ingame video settings which are already pretty self explanatory and definitely should not take 26 min jesus christ....

So skip to around 26:15 for the useful info on enabling MS MSMQ, the following reg edit for MSMQ and some internet settings also in the registry. I saw no performance improvements from those changes btw, same latency as always, from 50-80ms ping and the same feel to it.

Banana

Jayman1000 wrote: »

There are a few helpful tips in that video. 26:15 part of the video is pretty useless as it just talks about the ingame video settings which are already pretty self explanatory and definitely should not take 26 min jesus christ....

So skip to around 26:15 for the useful info on enabling MS MSMQ, the following reg edit for MSMQ and some internet settings also in the registry. I saw no performance improvements from those changes btw, same latency as always, from 50-80ms ping and the same feel to it.

50-80 Ping You dont have any issues

eso_lags

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

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

Probably not going to watch it all since i play on xbox. If you have some tips for xbox let me know but i doubt it since ive tried everything. Sad that players have to do this because zos doesnt give a damn. Also sad that console players will forever be at the bottom when it comes to eso. The struggle is real on console

Minno

LadyLethalla wrote: »

Hostee wrote: »

Us console plebs can’t make registry edits 😭

Us even poorer Australian console peasants are even worse off ;_;

Someone asked me in the templar rep discord to ask Rinaldo about Austrailian players who use VPNs. He said:
- VPNs bottleneck your connection in a way, but provide you a more direct link to the servers.
- MS MSMQ won't be helping you here, since your VPN is probably controlling how many packets it needs to send. SO while you are opening up the floodgates, your VPN probably has it's own floodgate.

For players that use a VPN, try playing the game with the settings in the video and no VPN turn on. Let us know the results! Otherwise don't use these settings; your VPN might be the best option for our Oceanic brothers.

For console players, we need to collectively ask ZOS to drop the graphic settings for you. I think this alone will help your game feel more responsive (I have it on PS4 and it's like watching paint dry sometimes lol). The graphics are already worse than PC, so might as well shut off all the settings straining the consoles (separate graphics settings for each console).

Also ALWAYS use a wired connection for gaming; if you use wireless on your game console, please consider changing how you connect. If you can't, there might not be much you can do, except maybe make sure your wireless signal is on a channel that other wifi networks around you are not using.

The other things I can think of are making sure your internet connection and modem can handle the traffic being used in your home. Your ISP only gives you one IP that is shared, so if you have everyone trying to stream/game you will overload your modem's ability to send information out (kinda like how in some homes electrical sockets are wired together with lights by code; if you plug in too many items into that outlet, you'll overload the breaker).

Odovacar

Hostee wrote: »

Wish there were some performance tweaks to make for PS4 😭

Wouldn't that be awesome! ….

dgsRawk

I played ESO for a couple of years, took a year off and came back a few weeks ago. Vivec PVP is my favorite part of the game, and over these last few weeks it has been unplayable for me for the most part. I can solo roam remote areas, but my game insta-kicks me any time I get near a heavy traffic keep being taken etc. This has happened without exception ever since I've been back......every single night.....over and over until i give up and go somewhere else. Really disheartening.

I watched this video and did everything suggested two nights ago. My video settings were very similar to this already, but i actually had some of them lower. I've played Vivec the last two nights in a row and can successfully enter keeps under attack etc and fight with limited lag. There is no doubt in my mind that these tweaks have made a tremendous impact on my game's ability to perform.

I'm astounded at all the negative comments, so i had to leave my first forum post ever, in all the years I've read them, to thank the OP for this information. While it may not be the solution everyone needs, it certainly worked for me and you have no idea how thankful I am to actually be able to fully play the game again. Ignore the naysayers. Hats off to you!

Androconium

dgsRawk wrote: »

I played ESO for a couple of years, took a year off and came back a few weeks ago. Vivec PVP is my favorite part of the game, and over these last few weeks it has been unplayable for me for the most part. I can solo roam remote areas, but my game insta-kicks me any time I get near a heavy traffic keep being taken etc. This has happened without exception ever since I've been back......every single night.....over and over until i give up and go somewhere else. Really disheartening.

I watched this video and did everything suggested two nights ago. My video settings were very similar to this already, but i actually had some of them lower. I've played Vivec the last two nights in a row and can successfully enter keeps under attack etc and fight with limited lag. There is no doubt in my mind that these tweaks have made a tremendous impact on my game's ability to perform.

I'm astounded at all the negative comments, so i had to leave my first forum post ever, in all the years I've read them, to thank the OP for this information. While it may not be the solution everyone needs, it certainly worked for me and you have no idea how thankful I am to actually be able to fully play the game again. Ignore the naysayers. Hats off to you!

Yep. The only way I've been able to continue playing at all, was because I've already been pulling my video settings back.

Zos could help here by making rain, ash etc an optional effect.

I can confirm switching from wireless to cable has improved the quality of gameplay.

I haven't got to the IP changes, but they seem to make sense. I was also wondering about the impact of VPN vs the changes suggested here.

Very happy with with the effort put in my the op and others for investigating this.
If nothing else, it has stopped a lot of fix-the-server posts.

Minno

Valrien wrote: »

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?

Vsync, sun rays, etc. are all off. Especially if you use a laptop, that might not have a beefy videocard.

Set particles and draw to the minimum you can. They added those settings when the infamous lighting patch was added and performance was never the same.

Valrien wrote: »

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?

If you remove Nagel's algorithm, you might have lag issues with large format file uploads/down-lights (dropbox, google drive, etc.) It really depends on the services you are using (for example VPNs causing more lag because they require less packets.)

If you notice a change in any programs you use, let us know! We can then include that in the OP to avoid. Otherwise, it should really impact what you do outside of ESO.

joaoppecurto

Does this work with the steam edition? I will try this and post the results.

joaoppecurto

joaoppecurto wrote: »

Does this work with the steam edition? I will try this and post the results.

I can confirm (did everything stated on the video) that I got a much better experience. 84-100ms when in zone exploring (it was a bit more, usually yellow).
After zone loading (from one zone to another) I reach yellow (160ms), only for a few seconds, then back to the stated above.
200 ms after initial loading for a few seconds (used to be 400).

However, it's 4AM GMT+1 in Portugal so not the best time to collect results. Only found 1 player.
When I can I will post the result on alikr's dolmens (got a few crashes here before).
50 - 60FPS most of the time.

i7 4750HQ, 950m 2gb ddr3 v2, 8gb ram ddr3 1600mhz, 840 evo 250gb.
No video settings addon, wired connection.

EDIT: medium settings, 1080p, anti-aliasing on