WoW vs. ESO - Questions about Game Coding

BleedMe_AnOcean

Mornin', y'all. I'm new to ESO but not MMOs, and after perusing the forums for a while, I've seen a comment a few times that I absolutely don't understand:

"You can play WoW on a potato." I take this to mean that you can download and run WoW on a subpar machine, and I also take it as an insinuation that ESO demands a higher performance machine.

That's the exact opposite of my experience.

I run an older quad-core i5 (3.2GHz) with a 4GB 740ti (read: ancient, but still displays most games beautifully on my ultrawide 2560x1080 resolution monitor) and 12GB RAM and I have ZERO issues with running ESO. I maintain solid FPS on high settings if I turn shadows down a bit. Now, that said, here's the deal with WoW: I played for 2.5 years. I started in Draenor, and that's when I actually put the video card in my tower. It worked well. Then Legion came out and things went downhill with huge frame drops and the need to drop settings to the point that raids were going to be a pain. I was casual (but dedicated) raider and that's when my system strain became problematic. With 15-30 people in a room casting graphics-intense spells, FPS drops were a nightmare. When BFA came out, I knew my PC wasn't going to handle it. Apparently, with each new iteration of WoW, tens of thousands of people are left in the dust because they just don't have the PC power to run it effectively.

Dumped WoW and said goodbye to Blizz, then picked up ESO for PS4 due to all the comments about how ESO is worse than WoW for requiring expensive PC upgrades and my unwillingness to upgrade my tower any further right now. After dealing with the clunky console system and various bugs, I decided to give PC a shot. I've had the base game for a while so I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. Oh. My. Gosh. The difference is tangible. Things look SO MUCH BETTER on my computer, even though it's a "potato" to the elitists out there because I don't buy and install the newest processors/GPUs the second they come out. I'm running high settings on everything but shadows, and I have my view distance turned up about 3/4 of the slider. I even run Master Merchant, and the only time I get the tiniest amount of lag is when it updates. That's easily remedied in trial situations by disabling the addon.

I don't know if I want to continue pursuing my adventures on console at all, in fact. It's that good.

Now that I've explained all of this... why do people think ESO is more graphics-intensive than WoW? If you head over to the WoW forums, you'll find umpteen billion threads about how Blizzard just keeps building on the same tremendously outdated, clunky code. You'll read how it could be a better game with better graphics (and we can all agree that ESO's graphics leave WoW in the dust, I'm sure) if they would take the time to actually rebuild their code from the ground up rather than relying on their ancient system. I can personally attest that WoW cannot be played on a potato and ESO can be played on a far less optimized machine with better graphics, better response times, and a more immersive experience overall.

If anyone else here has played both games and shares this experience - or if you happen to have some kind of knowledge about the differences in the way the two games are built - I'm interested in reading it. This isn't intended to start a debate. I'm genuinely curious as to why there seems to be this myth floating around that ESO will chew up your video card and spit it out like raw skeever while WoW runs flawlessly on a Commodore.

Aurielle

It depends on the content. I can guarantee you that if you attempt to engage in a large-scale siege in Cyrodiil, your potato PC will feel the strain in ways it never did on WoW. Also, do you run trials? People with higher-end PCs experience performance issues in trials all the time.

If you’re just doing overland stuff, yeah, ESO runs okay on potatoes. Same goes for WoW, though.

qbit

There are unlimited ways to make a Turing machine render some pixels in response to user input. Some programmers architect their game better than others. But once the foundation and frame of the structure is built, it’s impossible to change without a complete rewrite of the code. Something as simple as a data structure that represents other characters can be impossible to change years later and be completely the cause of slow performance when the number of other characters/players increase beyond original design intent. Or maybe they just didn’t think of something

Not sure if that answers your question. I stopped reading your post pretty early on and am basing this response on the thread title.

BleedMe_AnOcean

I have no intention of ever stepping foot in Cyrodiil. After seeing how terribly it performs on rigs that cost a few grand, I'm thinking I'd end up with mashed potato. Teehee. Besides, I'm not much of a PvP person and never have been.

I haven't done trials yet, but I *have* done dolmens and geysers when there are probably 25-30 people around. I did get some FPS drops here and there but nothing that made it unplayable. Considering trials are instanced, I'm hoping it won't get much worse than what I experienced during those events.

With WoW, when Legion came out, I had to drop my settings significantly even for World Bosses.

So far, in my experience, ESO's graphics are FAR better and require less GPU/CPU power. I'm still leveling (damn the lack of transfers from console to PC!) but I do intend to do trials once I'm capable and suitably geared. I'm terrified my machine won't be able to handle it, and I'm afraid comparing instanced trials with overland content like dolmens and geysers is like comparing apples and oranges.

Why are people with high-end machines having trouble in trials? Is it because the graphics are just too much for even the top-of-the-line GPUs? Latency issues? Bad code? I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Dawnblade

Aurielle wrote: »

It depends on the content. I can guarantee you that if you attempt to engage in a large-scale siege in Cyrodiil, your potato PC will feel the strain in ways it never did on WoW. Also, do you run trials? People with higher-end PCs experience performance issues in trials all the time.

If you’re just doing overland stuff, yeah, ESO runs okay on potatoes. Same goes for WoW, though.

Both games generally run smooth enough for me in less busy areas (middle of the pack PC - not 4K), though I have had some friends in WoW that have struggled with the most recent graphics updates associated with BfA.

Both though can stress a machine in busy areas or in large scale battles (trials / raids) with all the various effects concentrated in a small area, though WoW does not have a comparable large open battle area to Cyrodiil.

All the above is outside the server lag / loading screen issues that seem to plague ESO more so than WoW.

BleedMe_AnOcean

qbit wrote: »

There are unlimited ways to make a Turing machine render some pixels in response to user input. Some programmers architect their game better than others. But once the foundation and frame of the structure is built, it’s impossible to change without a complete rewrite of the code. Something as simple as a data structure that represents other characters can be impossible to change years later and be completely the cause of slow performance when the number of other characters/players increase beyond original design intent. Or maybe they just didn’t think of something

Interesting. So if we assume that Blizzard's code is crap, you're saying that redoing it would be impossible and people are just stuck with the issues it causes. This is exactly what the folks in the forums say, too.

qbit wrote: »

Not sure if that answers your question. I stopped reading your post pretty early on and am basing this response on the thread title.

It does, and I don't blame you. I forgot the tl;dr at the end of the post!

BleedMe_AnOcean

Dawnblade wrote: »

Both though can stress a machine in busy areas or in large scale battles (trials / raids) with all the various effects concentrated in a small area, though WoW does not have a comparable large open battle area to Cyrodiil.

All the above is outside the server lag / loading screen issues that seem to plague ESO more so than WoW.

WoW had Ashran back in WoD days. I'm not sure how "big" Ashran is compared to something like Cyrodiil, but the FPS drops even back then were insane. Heaven forbid I step foot in Ashran for a quest. (Something else I don't like about WoW - locking things behind PvP content when not everyone enjoys PvP. BOO!)

And I've actually had the opposite experience with lag/load screens. WoW was awful for me and one of the reasons I stopped subbing. ESO has been pretty good so far... on PC. On console? Forget about it. I spent more time looking at the load screen than playing.

Zorgon_The_Revenged

….well some peoples "potato" could be so full of dodgy freeware and poorly maintained that you might as well call it "soggy mashed potato"....

If I run my game on lowest settings with everything turned off or high with ultra shadows, view distance maxed with everything turned on the game sometimes crashes at the same dumb things (wayshrines, doors etc) at the same frequency. It makes little difference to FPS and I see no difference in the main problem of latency.

Elsonso

BleedMe_AnOcean wrote: »

I have no intention of ever stepping foot in Cyrodiil. After seeing how terribly it performs on rigs that cost a few grand, I'm thinking I'd end up with mashed potato. Teehee. Besides, I'm not much of a PvP person and never have been.

I haven't done trials yet, but I *have* done dolmens and geysers when there are probably 25-30 people around. I did get some FPS drops here and there but nothing that made it unplayable. Considering trials are instanced, I'm hoping it won't get much worse than what I experienced during those events.

With WoW, when Legion came out, I had to drop my settings significantly even for World Bosses.

So far, in my experience, ESO's graphics are FAR better and require less GPU/CPU power. I'm still leveling (damn the lack of transfers from console to PC!) but I do intend to do trials once I'm capable and suitably geared. I'm terrified my machine won't be able to handle it, and I'm afraid comparing instanced trials with overland content like dolmens and geysers is like comparing apples and oranges.

Why are people with high-end machines having trouble in trials? Is it because the graphics are just too much for even the top-of-the-line GPUs? Latency issues? Bad code? I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Blizzard has been stepping up their game in the last few expansions as they rebuild-in-place. That is what I am being told, at least. Apparently, this means that some computers are no longer able to run the game. No doubt, their forums are gnashing teeth over this. ZOS is doing the same, but it appears to be at a faster pace than Blizzard.

FPS in ESO is a matter of opinion. I can generally tell when FPS drops, but it is not usually obvious to me until it hits 30. If it gets below 20, I start to think "WTH is going on". I consider the game to be playable, but obviously not optimal, as low as 25.

I would be interested in hearing from the ZOS tech folks regarding what the official "updates per second" criteria is for the game. My personal opinion regarding FPS is that anything above 2x that number is just generating unnecessary heat.

Doubt that information will ever be coming my way, outside of large bribes and an NDA.

BleedMe_AnOcean

Zorgon_The_Revenged wrote: »

….well some peoples "potato" could be so full of dodgy freeware and poorly maintained that you might as well call it "soggy mashed potato"....

If I run my game on lowest settings with everything turned off or high with ultra shadows, view distance maxed with everything turned on the game sometimes crashes at the same dumb things (wayshrines, doors etc) at the same frequency. It makes little difference to FPS and I see no difference in the main problem of latency.

Thanks for this. I take this to mean it's the latency causing you the most issues and not your GPU's inability to handle the graphics?

This makes me feel a *little* better about running trials down the line, too. I haven't been in one yet, so here's another question: with those random disconnects, is it more than one group member experiencing the problem, or is it just you?

BleedMe_AnOcean

lordrichter wrote: »

BleedMe_AnOcean wrote: »

I have no intention of ever stepping foot in Cyrodiil. After seeing how terribly it performs on rigs that cost a few grand, I'm thinking I'd end up with mashed potato. Teehee. Besides, I'm not much of a PvP person and never have been.

I haven't done trials yet, but I *have* done dolmens and geysers when there are probably 25-30 people around. I did get some FPS drops here and there but nothing that made it unplayable. Considering trials are instanced, I'm hoping it won't get much worse than what I experienced during those events.

With WoW, when Legion came out, I had to drop my settings significantly even for World Bosses.

So far, in my experience, ESO's graphics are FAR better and require less GPU/CPU power. I'm still leveling (damn the lack of transfers from console to PC!) but I do intend to do trials once I'm capable and suitably geared. I'm terrified my machine won't be able to handle it, and I'm afraid comparing instanced trials with overland content like dolmens and geysers is like comparing apples and oranges.

Why are people with high-end machines having trouble in trials? Is it because the graphics are just too much for even the top-of-the-line GPUs? Latency issues? Bad code? I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Blizzard has been stepping up their game in the last few expansions as they rebuild-in-place. That is what I am being told, at least. Apparently, this means that some computers are no longer able to run the game. No doubt, their forums are gnashing teeth over this. ZOS is doing the same, but it appears to be at a faster pace than Blizzard.

FPS in ESO is a matter of opinion. I can generally tell when FPS drops, but it is not usually obvious to me until it hits 30. If it gets below 20, I start to think "WTH is going on". I consider the game to be playable, but obviously not optimal, as low as 25.

I would be interested in hearing from the ZOS tech folks regarding what the official "updates per second" criteria is for the game. My personal opinion regarding FPS is that anything above 2x that number is just generating unnecessary heat.

Doubt that information will ever be coming my way, outside of large bribes and an NDA.

Same. I never understood why people insisted on 100+ FPS. I can't see a difference in anything above 60-ish anyway, and 30 is perfectly playable in my opinion.

zaria

Having separate graphic settings for trials and cyrodil would probably solve lots of problems. Especially spell effects and perhaps shadows. Server performance should be the same if you are inside an keep or in an huge fight.

Morgul667

Is Wow ping demanding? Im thinking to give it a try after the consequent disappointment with Zos

Is the pvp there, any good? I need tk make my own idea but a couple replies would be nice while slightly off topic

ATomiX96

the game is highly single-core performance intensive, due to clunky homebrew game-engine, you can probably run the game on high graphics with a 2nd gen i5 and a gtx560 or something.... until you step in areas like trials and cyrodiil.

Bashev

BleedMe_AnOcean wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

BleedMe_AnOcean wrote: »

I have no intention of ever stepping foot in Cyrodiil. After seeing how terribly it performs on rigs that cost a few grand, I'm thinking I'd end up with mashed potato. Teehee. Besides, I'm not much of a PvP person and never have been.

I haven't done trials yet, but I *have* done dolmens and geysers when there are probably 25-30 people around. I did get some FPS drops here and there but nothing that made it unplayable. Considering trials are instanced, I'm hoping it won't get much worse than what I experienced during those events.

With WoW, when Legion came out, I had to drop my settings significantly even for World Bosses.

So far, in my experience, ESO's graphics are FAR better and require less GPU/CPU power. I'm still leveling (damn the lack of transfers from console to PC!) but I do intend to do trials once I'm capable and suitably geared. I'm terrified my machine won't be able to handle it, and I'm afraid comparing instanced trials with overland content like dolmens and geysers is like comparing apples and oranges.

Why are people with high-end machines having trouble in trials? Is it because the graphics are just too much for even the top-of-the-line GPUs? Latency issues? Bad code? I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Blizzard has been stepping up their game in the last few expansions as they rebuild-in-place. That is what I am being told, at least. Apparently, this means that some computers are no longer able to run the game. No doubt, their forums are gnashing teeth over this. ZOS is doing the same, but it appears to be at a faster pace than Blizzard.

FPS in ESO is a matter of opinion. I can generally tell when FPS drops, but it is not usually obvious to me until it hits 30. If it gets below 20, I start to think "WTH is going on". I consider the game to be playable, but obviously not optimal, as low as 25.

I would be interested in hearing from the ZOS tech folks regarding what the official "updates per second" criteria is for the game. My personal opinion regarding FPS is that anything above 2x that number is just generating unnecessary heat.

Doubt that information will ever be coming my way, outside of large bribes and an NDA.

Same. I never understood why people insisted on 100+ FPS. I can't see a difference in anything above 60-ish anyway, and 30 is perfectly playable in my opinion.

You cannot see the difference but your eye and brain see it.

It depends how much time you spent in front of the PC. For example I work the whole day on PC and then when I go home and want to spend 2 hours gaming my eyes are exhausted. I switched to 100Hz Gsync and the difference is like night and day. I will never go back, better quit gaming than playing without GSync and with low FPS.

BleedMe_AnOcean

Bashev wrote: »

It depends how much time you spent in front of the PC. For example I work the whole day on PC and then when I go home and want to spend 2 hours gaming my eyes are exhausted. I switched to 100Hz Gsync and the difference is like night and day. I will never go back, better quit gaming than playing without GSync and with low FPS.

Good point, but I wonder if maybe it's one of those things where some people are just more sensitive to it than others.

I work at my PC all day - the same one I use for ESO - and I have been working at a computer for 12 years. I have a Samsung ultrawide 24" monitor that's 70-ish GHz (I think?) to prevent eye strain. I honestly cannot tell the difference between it and most standard monitors in terms of framerate/refresh except for when I turn on the blue light reduction setting.

Maybe that'll be a helpful suggestion for anyone who gets eye fatigue. That blue light is harsh.

Edit to add: Yes, 12 years is a long time. Yes, I'm an old lady. Hahaha. I'll celebrate my 29th birthday for the 11th time soon!

BleedMe_AnOcean

ATomiX96 wrote: »

the game is highly single-core performance intensive, due to clunky homebrew game-engine, you can probably run the game on high graphics with a 2nd gen i5 and a gtx560 or something.... until you step in areas like trials and cyrodiil.

I've heard this about pretty much all MMOs. I vaguely remember someone telling me you can *force* the game to run on a single core somehow, but I don't remember how or if it's even possible. It came up once when discussing octo-core processors. They're fantastic if you need 12 programs open at once, but not necessary for MMO gaming. At least that's what I've been told.

BleedMe_AnOcean

Morgul667 wrote: »

Is Wow ping demanding? Is the pvp there, any good? I need tk make my own idea but a couple replies would be nice while slightly off topic

Not a clue. I never had an issue with ping on NA servers but I didn't PvP. I got FPS drops in PvP zones, though, when I had to go there for quests.

ZeroXFF

ESO is very dependent on single core CPU performance. Almost nothing else matters. I run with a prehistoric HD7850 graphics card, and I'm still CPU bound on an overclocked (3.85GHz) R7 1700. So yeah, you will have issues on "high end" machines if you spend all your budget on a 2080ti, but if you go with an 8700k, 9700k or 9900k with a mid range graphics card (something like RX580/GTX1060), you will have a much better experience in ESO at the same (or even lower) price.

Elsonso

ZeroXFF wrote: »

ESO is very dependent on single core CPU performance. Almost nothing else matters. I run with a prehistoric HD7850 graphics card, and I'm still CPU bound on an overclocked (3.85GHz) R7 1700. So yeah, you will have issues on "high end" machines if you spend all your budget on a 2080ti, but if you go with an 8700k, 9700k or 9900k with a mid range graphics card (something like RX580/GTX1060), you will have a much better experience in ESO at the same (or even lower) price.

Hopefully, now that we are moving away from DX9, they can update that behavior to better use multiple cores and the GPU.

Acrolas

Update 18 effectively ended the single core approach.

Increased the amount of CPU cores used by the client, which will improve the overall framerate for players on mid- to high-end CPUs. This will be most notable in PvP or graphically intense scenarios.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413283/pc-mac-patch-notes-v4-0-5-summerset-update-18


As far as the graphics, while you do need a dedicated graphics card to display the game and render/shade objects, probably the single most overlooked factor for your client-side performance is the quality of your hard drive. Which, in many types of computer builds does wind up on the lower priority side of things. CPU, memory, and the quality of your Internet connection all matter, too. But installing ESO on a fast solid state drive and playing the game on High priority is probably the most effective cost-to-performance upgrade anyone can make.

Add-ons can consume a lot of memory and wreck both your latency and frame rate, so mileage will vary per player in what type of approach they want to take in managing those add-ons. Shutting off more data intensive ones like Master Merchant and HarvestMap before loading into Cyrodiil is a good place to start before considering additional computer hardware.

evoniee

i play on laptop with b950 and gt520m.
i played well in pvp....
dont bully me my lord pc master race.

SHADOW2KK

evoniee wrote: »

i play on laptop with b950 and gt520m.
i played well in pvp....
dont bully me my lord pc master race.

Upgrade to a decent rig and you will love it

ZeroXFF

Acrolas wrote: »

Update 18 effectively ended the single core approach.

Increased the amount of CPU cores used by the client, which will improve the overall framerate for players on mid- to high-end CPUs. This will be most notable in PvP or graphically intense scenarios.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413283/pc-mac-patch-notes-v4-0-5-summerset-update-18


As far as the graphics, while you do need a dedicated graphics card to display the game and render/shade objects, probably the single most overlooked factor for your client-side performance is the quality of your hard drive. Which, in many types of computer builds does wind up on the lower priority side of things. CPU, memory, and the quality of your Internet connection all matter, too. But installing ESO on a fast solid state drive and playing the game on High priority is probably the most effective cost-to-performance upgrade anyone can make.

Add-ons can consume a lot of memory and wreck both your latency and frame rate, so mileage will vary per player in what type of approach they want to take in managing those add-ons. Shutting off more data intensive ones like Master Merchant and HarvestMap before loading into Cyrodiil is a good place to start before considering additional computer hardware.

That sounds great, but in practice single core performance is still a limiting factor in most cases. That update did bring about a 20% improvement, but considering that anywhere outside of March of Sacrifices my GPU is hardly ever going over 60-80% load, it's still your best bet to go with a high end CPU and a mid-range GPU.

Wildberryjack

WoW is horribly optimized and actually strained my machine more to run than this game does because of that. My computer can handle anything and runs ESO just fine on high/ultra settings, I could not do that with WoW though, had to put the settings on medium at best or the game lagged out and my FPS dropped to absurd levels. A potato can run WoW, just on its lowest settings. This game it may could as well but if you turn up the settings level then I don't see a potato having a good time of it.

FakeFox

I'm not sure about WoW performance right now as I haven't played it for years, but I can draw comparisons to other more modern MMOs with somewhat comparable graphics. And in that comparison ESOs performance is a joke. No matter how good your system is you always have lag and FPS drops. I mean for the most part it's tolerable, but never the less kind of a joke when I think about the fact that other MMOs run with constant 100+ FPS while having even more players in PvE as well as PvP fights.

Rain_Greyraven

I think it's worth mentioning that the folks at Blizzard who created their engines ( Mike Morhaime, Allen Adham, Frank Pierce, Ron Pardo) were all extremely talented programmers, Mike Morhaime wrote the tools to make Warcraft 1 while the rest of the company was working on Rock and Roll racing, all of the iterations for the Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft games comes from that platform, that has been iterated upon build after build, Allen Adham wrote the first Battlenet code, which again has been iterated upon year after year.....That is why all of those games can run on a potato.

For some reason, Zenimax thought they could do the same thing, and that is incredibly naive, Good tight, well performing code is more an art than a science. I think the Esoteric engine (which is my pet name for whatever mess Zenimax is running) can't be tweaked much more, because of the limitations with the Rad engine suite, and code that isn't very elegant.

If you want to go PC, I suggest focusing on a processor with a strong main core, and a good bit of RAM....I have seen I5 intel chips and GEFORCE 1070's work best with ESO, also do play the game with wif-fi hardwire your connection with a good cat six cable.

I don't look for multi-thread support in ESO any time soon, (Despite what update 18 claims it did) nor do I look for better shading, effects, animations or load balancing.

It's a twitchy, esoteric engine, and does not handel current technology well.

Bhaal5

I did the same mistake, playing eso on ps4

In the end, youll end up back on pc on the mmo's you originally came from (regretting that platform switch). Please dont waste your time and money on the ps4 like i did, its not worth it.

BleedMe_AnOcean

FakeFox wrote: »

I'm not sure about WoW performance right now as I haven't played it for years, but I can draw comparisons to other more modern MMOs with somewhat comparable graphics. And in that comparison ESOs performance is a joke. No matter how good your system is you always have lag and FPS drops. I mean for the most part it's tolerable, but never the less kind of a joke when I think about the fact that other MMOs run with constant 100+ FPS while having even more players in PvE as well as PvP fights.

What game would you be referring to, here? Just curious. (No, that's not snark. It's genuine curiosity.)

BleedMe_AnOcean

DjinnRa wrote: »

WoW is horribly optimized and actually strained my machine more to run than this game does because of that. My computer can handle anything and runs ESO just fine on high/ultra settings, I could not do that with WoW though, had to put the settings on medium at best or the game lagged out and my FPS dropped to absurd levels. A potato can run WoW, just on its lowest settings. This game it may could as well but if you turn up the settings level then I don't see a potato having a good time of it.

THIS. All of this. The same thing applies to me. I think people just sing the praises of the WoW engine because they're on an ESO forum, but I can assure you that over on the WoW forums, this is not the case.

My PC won't run the BoA expansion at anything beyond low settings with mid here and there. ESO? Most things are on high, and I get FPS drops to roughly 40 in high-pop areas or when tackling dolmens and the like, but that's hardly unplayable IMHO.

dovakiin5574

My $4k PC (self built, worth $6k prebuilt) runs both games so well that I have no idea how to relate. My upgraded internet speed helps. What is this lag you speak of? Cyrodil is as smooth as rich butter for me