FPS Problem

otab

When I tried the newest patch, I was very pleasantly surprised. My performance levels are back to being playable.

Note that I had completely uninstalled the game client, so this is a fresh install.

* Without vSync, 40-60fps in most areas, with occasional drops into the 30s in crowded cities (not bad)
* With vSync, 30fps in most areas, but smooth at least (better)
* All full-screen flickering gone, with or without vSync enabled (excellent)
* Game remembers Fullscreen choice (excellent)
* Haven't experienced on-close crash (excellent)
* Haven't experienced in-game crashes, but admittedly only played for a short interval to quick-check, and I don't do:
** PVP
** Trials
** Cyrodil

My hardware setup:


Of note:
* Using Blackmagic eGPU, with eso set to prefer it.
* ESO Launcher is still 32-bit, so throws an "app is not optimized" message. (blergh)

Game Settings:
* Fullscreen, game running on external 4k display, hooked up to eGPU, at 3008x1692
* Graphics on High
* vSync off
* Antialiasing off
* Subsampling at medium
* Water reflections off
* Particle systems at 768
* View distance at 50

FINAL NOTES:
* Prior to Murkmire update, I was getting 50-60fps with this same setup, and all settings on Ultra High.
* Still more work to do, but encouraging to see progress
* At least it's *playable* now for me

dustgollum

FPS slightly improved (maybe 10 fps increase at times) but still on average 25-30 fps with huge lag in any highly populated area. Alinor is not even worth going to, for example. Screen freezes continue in busy areas.
Random crashes of client much worse since latest patch and can be any time, any situation (not just highly populated areas, happens in houses or empty zones even when getting higher FPS.) Really annoying, considering how long it takes to restart, load, and log in the client.
If I'm porting and switch to another app (i.e. to type here) my whole computer is freezing up. Memory leak?
I don't even do dungeons, raids, group activity. I'm getting all this playing alone PVE just trying to craft and do dailies. I can do dolmens/geysers/delves but I'm lagging the entire time.

karpok

I got those random crashes too since latest patch.
And when I try to log back on I usually got an error message telling me I can't login and asking me to check my connection. If I relog a second time it works then.

elgirth

Game still crashes every time I log out but this time the window stays open and black and I have to force quit.


Crashed again

Zymcio

Hello all MacOS users

i made a topic pls vote u are welcome

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/449327/do-you-have-any-issue-performance-problems-with-eso-fps-lags#latest

rluke

elgirth wrote: »

Game still crashes every time I log out but this time the window stays open and black and I have to force quit.


Crashed again

+ same here

Ostacia

The past couple of nights the game crashed on me when I wasn't quitting, I was just playing normally, doing some dailies. Usually it crashes only after I "Quit." In both instances, I have to Force Quit the game.

Wodinn

I wasn't having problems with it crashing until yesterday. Now suddenly it's having trouble starting up. And I've had to force quit the game the last two times I played.

JJBoomer

@ZOS_AlexTardif any updates? or are we to assume work on fixing the mac client has been abandoned? even though some people have seen slight improvements, slight improvements are not the same as your mac client being FIXED.

its been a while since an update. would be appreciated.

ethernut60

Over a month and a half, and no meaningful improvement or reasonable communication from ZOS. My patience is gone, I'm done.

demerdecanswrath

It's unwise to panic. The devs have been very clear that they are working on the Mac client within the confines of the studio's raw manpower, management and overall budget. This takes time.

Admittedly though, it is very upsetting that we're not informed more regularly and in greater detail. After all, we're already crawling in the forums aren't we?

FierceSam

I love the jiggly jiggly of getting a regular 4 or 5 FPS lag all over Alinor

All day, every day

Montie

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

It's unwise to panic. The devs have been very clear that they are working on the Mac client within the confines of the studio's raw manpower, management and overall budget. This takes time.

Admittedly though, it is very upsetting that we're not informed more regularly and in greater detail. After all, we're already crawling in the forums aren't we?

Just move on to something else. They don't care about you and if they do, they have a funny way of showing it. Knowingly putting out a patch that broke Mac clients (there is no way this was tested and not known), lack of meaningful communication...my patience was gone a long time ago, I just like checking the forum to see the ever evolving train wreck of a game they have on Macs. It is like watching the train wreck of another game under the Zenimax umbrella of companies called Fallout 76.

Wodinn

Played for a long time tonight. Crashed 3 times total. Then had to force quit the game.

Also, montie it's your choice not to play the game. So you keep coming back to the forums to... see use continue to update the thread? Get a life.

elgirth

Just roll it back already

demerdecanswrath

elgirth wrote: »

Just roll it back already

That's just a bad idea. Now that they're hot on their heels to finally implement a new technology, rolling back to old and deprecated APIs would A ) spell serious trouble for the long term B ) inadvertently shelf Mac client development plans once more.

Because apparently, even with the old API, working for years on slight improvements for PC players was more important than fixing things like the horrendous disappearing/blocky/stuck cursor on the Mac..

keto3000

Hang in there guys! It's frustrating on my rig too but I firmly believe ZOS will make this work for the better after @ZOS_AlexTardif did acknowledge the issues (earlier in this thread) & clearly stated they are prepping an active fix.

Eeryone agrees it was a sloppy and premature rollout. Let's keep documenting actual issues related to it here. We know they are being scanned by ZOS.

I expect we will get a decent fix in DEC/JAN-- hoping for DEC!


NOTE: I'm also still experiencing regular freezing during battles with high lighting effects (even Rapid Maneuvers), regular crashing about once every 40 mins in PVP: Vivec campaign, NA server

demerdecanswrath wrote: »

elgirth wrote: »

Just roll it back already

That's just a bad idea. Now that they're hot on their heels to finally implement a new technology, rolling back to old and deprecated APIs would A ) spell serious trouble for the long term B ) inadvertently shelf Mac client development plans once more.

Because apparently, even with the old API, working for years on slight improvements for PC players was more important than fixing things like the horrendous disappearing/blocky/stuck cursor on the Mac..

nathan_bri

My latest progress with the Mac client has two outstanding issues unrelated to the halved frame rate:

1. Random crashes, which means I need to swap to Windows to do anything serious like dungeon runs because no one likes it when a member drops in the middle of a fight.

2. When I quit the client, my main screen goes black, as if the client is cleaning up memory and preparing to exit, but then never exits. The screen stays black indefinitely until I hit Command-Option-Escape to bring up the option to force-quit applications, at which point the black screen magically goes away and I don’t even see the force-quit menu. It’s as if the OS is responding with, “What? Oh yeah, this application misbehaving is obviously the reason you hit Command-Option-Escape, so no need to show the menu to you. We’ll just terminate the app.”

zarnon_akoni

I think they are just BS'ing us. I believe the problem is so big that they realized they need such a powerful Mac to play the game that it will kill their user base because it mean everyone having problems really needs to spend $2k to fix it.

Yesterday I put in a ticket asking for clarification if the top end 21.5" iMac or the bottom end 27" would be a better buy for me to ensure ESO works. It's time for me to upgrade and would prefer not to buy one that doesn't fix my issues here or else I'm truly done with the game.

I was told to play on Windows. You can see the actual response on the separate thread here.

sean.plackerb14_ESO

ZOS_AlexTardif wrote: »

Hello everyone, we have some updates on the Mac client issues:

The flickering bug has been fixed internally and is currently in testing. It's mostly a timing issue on our side with the new API, which is why changing your video settings can impact whether or not you experience it.

We have some crash fixes as well, including the crash you can encounter when exiting the game.

We also have additional performance improvements in testing, which should help those of you running at higher graphics settings.

All of the above will be pushed in a future incremental after they've been vetted.

We would also like to clear up some of the concerns in your comments here about future Mac support for ESO. We intend to continue supporting ESO on the Mac, and this is why we made the switch to Metal via MoltenVK. This way we could ensure that, whenever the time comes that OpenGL is phased out on the Mac completely, we're ahead of it and you can continue to play the game. We recognize the missteps in this initial implementation, but we're committed to working on improving the Mac experience until the issues are resolved. To that end, we're also in discussions with support from Apple on how we can better leverage their API to improve the game. In the meantime, thank you everyone for your patience while we've been working through these new issues.

I doubt I will get a answer but I'm really curious why you guys decided to use MoltenVK (basically a Vulkan to Metal wrapper) instead of moving directly from a OpenGL renderer to a Metal renderer? My only guess and hope actually as a Windows user is that there are plans to introduce a Vulkan renderer for the Windows client someday and this MoltenVK method helps unify things a bit code wise between the two.

HowTaoBrownCow

FYI, ZOS, just a quick state of the game for me: I've been running the New Life Festival and I normally get 2-3 crashes during every character's run of the 9 or so quests. Typically, it's when I zone into a wayshrine where there are a lot of players, like the one by Breda in Eastmarch, but sometimes it seems to be in a random place in the world. (Possibly I cross a cell border into an area with a bunch of other NLF questers?)

And, as others have reported, it crashes whenever I quit the game, and I have to Force Quit in order to get the black window to go away. I'm not sure whether that's more or less aggravating than the dance I have to do every time I start the game, of clicking in and out of the log on screen and between entry fields to get my cursor properly into the password field so that I can type it to log in.

My FPS is typically in the 15-25 range, dropping and stuttering if the world around me gets busy, so it's rough to play for very long without getting headachey. I don't do group dungeons or trials anymore: between the stuttering and the crashing, I'm not a reliable team member.

You guys have a lot of credit with me for a lot of fun hours, but this has been going on for a couple of months now and there's going to come a point where I let it go and just move on. I hope that you can resolve this soon.

ethernut60

sean.plackerb14_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_AlexTardif wrote: »

Hello everyone, we have some updates on the Mac client issues:

The flickering bug has been fixed internally and is currently in testing. It's mostly a timing issue on our side with the new API, which is why changing your video settings can impact whether or not you experience it.

We have some crash fixes as well, including the crash you can encounter when exiting the game.

We also have additional performance improvements in testing, which should help those of you running at higher graphics settings.

All of the above will be pushed in a future incremental after they've been vetted.

We would also like to clear up some of the concerns in your comments here about future Mac support for ESO. We intend to continue supporting ESO on the Mac, and this is why we made the switch to Metal via MoltenVK. This way we could ensure that, whenever the time comes that OpenGL is phased out on the Mac completely, we're ahead of it and you can continue to play the game. We recognize the missteps in this initial implementation, but we're committed to working on improving the Mac experience until the issues are resolved. To that end, we're also in discussions with support from Apple on how we can better leverage their API to improve the game. In the meantime, thank you everyone for your patience while we've been working through these new issues.

I doubt I will get a answer but I'm really curious why you guys decided to use MoltenVK (basically a Vulkan to Metal wrapper) instead of moving directly from a OpenGL renderer to a Metal renderer? My only guess and hope actually as a Windows user is that there are plans to introduce a Vulkan renderer for the Windows client someday and this MoltenVK method helps unify things a bit code wise between the two.

The reason is that Bethesda is in an agreement with AMD to start using Vulkan for their games. In the long run, Vulkan will potentially give them a larger user base as it is cross-platform, unlike DirectX and Metal.

tunepunk

My FPS is pretty OK now. Not as good as pre Murkmire but reasonable.

Although I'm getting really heavy FPS stutters every so often. Like the screen freezes or stutters. This happens mostly when moving around, so might be something to do with loading assets and clearing memory?

I also have crashes every 1-2 hours or so. The client just "pop" gone in the middle of a session. This is especially bad while doing battlegrounds etc.

JJBoomer

@ZOS_AlexTardif

FPS does seem to have improved. But still needs work to be back to pre-murkmire:

- shadows and water reflection are still unusable for example
- social hubs are very stutter-y
- and full screen basically destroys FPS

And yeah, experiencing the crashing bugs still.

Ostacia

tunepunk wrote: »

My FPS is pretty OK now. Not as good as pre Murkmire but reasonable.

Although I'm getting really heavy FPS stutters every so often. Like the screen freezes or stutters. This happens mostly when moving around, so might be something to do with loading assets and clearing memory?

I also have crashes every 1-2 hours or so. The client just "pop" gone in the middle of a session. This is especially bad while doing battlegrounds etc.

This ^ (I haven't ventured into BGs lately. Kind of afraid to do so. Same with dungeons. Don't want to "pop" out at an inopportune moment.) Hoping it gets sorted soon!

elgirth

Man I really just can express how upset I am about this whole debacle. I really wish this didn't happen because I just don't enjoy the game anymore. First it was the insane destruction of FPS, then the stuttering and crazy glitching and now barely improved FPS and consistent crashing. Every "fix" has resulted in another unfix that has drastically affected the game and its playability. I literally feel robbed of the time and money I put into this game when it was running perfect previously and was so damn fun to play. How in the world does ANYBODY release anything of such insane poor quality to its users. If this was the games initial release it would be dead. It's been 2 months and the progress is such a slow climb considering all the new bugs that come with each new "patch." I am a patient and positive person but this experience has been so absolutely terrible that I am just getting completely over it.

keto3000

.
My FPS has improved but the constant stuttering during high traffic areas, in towns, in pop battles and during rapid while riding in Cyrodiil. game will still freeze a lot and often then crashes. Here is a report and specs from recent crash:

Wodinn

Wintergreen wrote: »

tunepunk wrote: »

My FPS is pretty OK now. Not as good as pre Murkmire but reasonable.

Although I'm getting really heavy FPS stutters every so often. Like the screen freezes or stutters. This happens mostly when moving around, so might be something to do with loading assets and clearing memory?

I also have crashes every 1-2 hours or so. The client just "pop" gone in the middle of a session. This is especially bad while doing battlegrounds etc.

This ^ (I haven't ventured into BGs lately. Kind of afraid to do so. Same with dungeons. Don't want to "pop" out at an inopportune moment.) Hoping it gets sorted soon!

basically the same problems I'm having still.

ArranHS

Wodinn wrote: »

Wintergreen wrote: »

tunepunk wrote: »

My FPS is pretty OK now. Not as good as pre Murkmire but reasonable.

Although I'm getting really heavy FPS stutters every so often. Like the screen freezes or stutters. This happens mostly when moving around, so might be something to do with loading assets and clearing memory?

I also have crashes every 1-2 hours or so. The client just "pop" gone in the middle of a session. This is especially bad while doing battlegrounds etc.

This ^ (I haven't ventured into BGs lately. Kind of afraid to do so. Same with dungeons. Don't want to "pop" out at an inopportune moment.) Hoping it gets sorted soon!

basically the same problems I'm having still.

Also the same, trials/BGs/dungeons aren't really possible with how unstable the client is atm.

agegarton

FPS remains lower than it should be; crashes are persistent and extremely frustrating as it limits what I can commit to doing in the game; crashing on exit is now just a given; communication from Zennimax is as appalling as it could possibly be.

Awesome job ZoS. Just awesome.