ESO runs hot and it's not my PC...!

Baranovich

Been playing ESO again after taking time off from it. I'm noticing that ESO makes my CPU and GPU both go into the mid 80s C and they stay there for pretty much the entire time I'm playing.

Just so you understand, NO other game I have does this. I can play Skyrim modded with graphics maxed out, Empire Total War maxed out, WoW maxed out, LOTRO maxed out. When I play those games the temps. barely go into the high 60s, MAYBE low 70s. ESO is the only game that makes it run this hot. This is NOT a hardware issue. This is an ESO issue. People have reported similar problems with games such as The Division series, which has been reported to make PCs run crazy hot when nothing else they play does.

So I had to phrase the title that way because I was exhausted going on other forums where the only answer I found was, "it's your hardware", "it's your fans", "your PC is dirty."

"It's my hardware" is the best one....So like, what does that even mean? I have a defective component? Something is plugged in wrong? Ok, well then how do all my other games play totally cool and only ESO does this? That should be a clue!

My response is no. I have a gaming PC that is literally four months old. It is brand new and absolutely spotless inside. I'm running five case fans, plus the fan that that the CPU has on it as well. There is PLENTY of airflow. And no, I'm not going to check to see if the "thermal paste is bad." Thermal paste does not "go bad" on four month old processors, that's nonsense.

Also, please don't tell me to get liquid cooling or some other kind of advanced cooling system. If you have liquid cooling that's awesome. But that's not a solution that makes sense here. If you are able to play ESO at 65 C because you have advanced cooling that doesn't mean ESO doesn't have a problem with running hot in general. Modern processors and case fans should be able to keep themselves cool while playing ESO, liquid is overkill.

My specs are: CPU is AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core, 3700 Mhz GPU is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070

There is NO WAY ESO should be stressing this build to this degree.

I just installed Afterburner because I read on one forum that it's simply that NVIDIA's fans done run at a high enough percentage under load with their default settings. So I'm going to try that.

But in the mean time, has anyone else experienced this with ESO? And is there anything you did to tweak the settings or anything to help alleviate it?

SirAndy

Search the forums, plenty of posts about this already.

There is a (old) bug that is back where ESO will spike your GPU and/or CPU close to 100% when the game is pretty much idle (!) while in the startup screen, character select screen or a loading screen.

I say old bug because we had that exact same problem some years ago and it was eventually fixed. Looks like it's back now. I made a bug report about a month ago.


PS: Not that i'm expecting anyone at ESO to read this, but the easiest way to eliminate a problem like that is to add a call to sleep() or usleep() with a small millisecond value, like 3 for example, inside the loop that is run when those screens are active. That will give CPU slices back to the OS and make both CPU and GPU usage drop significantly without affecting performance on those screens.

Baranovich

...also just another note. When idling, my PC is in the low 30s C, both CPU and GPU. If there was something wrong with my hardware the PC would be running hot at idle as well, and it doesn't.

Baranovich

SirAndy wrote: »

Search the forums, plenty of posts about this already.

There is a (old) bug that is back where ESO will spike your GPU and/or CPU close to 100% when the game is pretty much idle (!) while in the startup screen, character select screen or a loading screen.

I say old bug because we had that exact same problem some years ago and it was eventually fixed. Looks like it's back now. I made a bug report about a month ago.

Thanks, I appreciate the reply! However the problem is that the game runs in the 80s all the time, not just in the startup, character select, and loading screens.

Oh so wait, are you saying that it will spike them every time there is a loading screen happening? That makes sense since you have to go through loading screens all the time in the game.

Ok so in other words when I go to check my hardware monitor the 80s readings are the loading screens spiking it but to me it looks like the overall temps for the game when it actually isn't.

I will investigate more about the bug, thanks!

DinoZavr

@Baranovich,
sorry, i don't get why this topic is at "Bug reports" not at "Tech Support".

i can speak only about my config: i5-9600kf (OC'd to 4.6GHz) on ASUS TUF Gaming Z390 motherboard 64GB RAM with NVidia 1660 Super and ADATA 512GB m.2 disk.
OCCT shows CPU utilization always below 40%, GPU utilization does not exceed 20%. All temperatures are below 65C.
well.. GPU goes to 70 during character load screens (as SirAndy already mentioned).

First i'd suggest to check your system integrity:
Game: run repair from launcher
(further i list suggestions for Windows)
Filesystem: run CHKDSK on all logical drives to check for corrupt filesystem
Windows: CMD with admin privileges and SFC /SCANNOW to check OS integrity

After these i'd suggest to start looking for stable drivers (as not all NVidia drivers are good)
The good idea is to use Snappy Driver Installer Origin to try different chipset drivers and Nvidia drivers.
run OCCT tests to see temperatures, maybe anything could vary for better.

If under OCCT stress tests your CPU and GPU hold fine, but too overloaded with ESO then, yes, something is wrong
next step would be upgrading motherboard firmware.
2070 should not be that utilized (i run my game on Full-HD with Ultra settings - still 20% and 60..65C)
so i sincerely suspect unstable Nvidia driver, downgrade to a stable one might help.

edit: typo
and as i m already editing: download OCCT check ALL temperature sensors: case cooler might be slacking and temp inside the case might be the issue, hard disk may be overheated. Anything above 80C is bad (exhaust (inside case) temp should not exceed 60..65C). Utilizations close to 100% are also bad (if not under stress tests tho).

SirAndy

DinoZavr wrote: »

@Baranovich,
sorry, i don't get why this topic is at "Bug reports" not at "Tech Support".

@DinoZavr

Because it *IS* a bug

Bring up your favorite CPU/GPU monitor, then start ESO, go to the character select screen and let it sit there.

Watch your CPU/GPU usage and temp while you are sitting at the character select screen where the game *should* be pretty much idle but in fact it is using *way* more CPU/GPU than when you are in-game playing.

That's the bug and as i have noted above, we had that same issue several years ago and it was eventually fixed, and now it is back.

DinoZavr

@SirAndy
i do agree about character load screen. Still while playing its normally OK.
nothing in OP post mentions problem is specific for the load screens, so i did my best to recommend a reasonable course of actions in attempt to fix the "overloaded" issue. What did i do wrong?

Baranovich

So I figured it out. Turns out it was neither a software or a hardware issue perse, but rather a settings issue. I was looking at the ESO graphics settings and I finally saw it.

I know about that bug you are all talking about with the loading screens, this however has nothing to do with this, that's a separate problem. It's an overall temp. problem during gameplay as I said in my original post, it's not just a problem with loading and character screens.

And I'm wondering how many other ESO players are having the same temp. issue and not understanding why. I'm going to post this as a separate topic because I guarantee other players are making the same mistake.

***It's the resolution the game is set at. In the graphics settings, ESO allows you to play at the max setting which is 3840 X 2160 '4' UHD. I had it set at that.

But then I was wondering about my monitor. It's a somewhat older one that has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Now here's the weird thing. My video card and the game itself is capable of the 3840 x 2160, but my monitor is NOT. So I kept all the graphics settings on high or ultra BUT I set the overall resolution of the game down to match my monitor at 1920 x 1080. And the game IMMEDIATELY DROPPED 20 degrees! I've been playing for about a half hour and it's not going above 65 C, neither the CPU or GPU.

And that was why my system was being taxed so much. It was rendering the game at max resolution but fighting with the monitor at the same time. Can't be a coincidence that the moment I changed the game resolution the temp. went down twenty degrees, it has to be the cause.

I am betting that there are a lot of ESO players out there who are just setting the max resolution not knowing their monitor might not be able to handle that resolution.

So I would have to get a newer monitor to play at the higher resolution, but the game still looks amazing at even 1920 x 1080.

tplink3r1

80c while gaming seems indeed a high temp for a 2700x
My 3700x with the stock cooler only gets past 80c when i run a CPU benchmark.