Unusual and Unplayable FPS Issues, Other Games Running Fine (solved)

KayleeSeranada

I logged in to find my character select screen running at extremely low FPS, making it difficult to even spin the character model. I thought it might be a fluke and logged in anyway, but found the game calculating 15 FPS in my (modest) house. For reference, I usually have little issue keeping ~60FPS on Max settings, dropping to the occasional 40 or so in crowded towns while traveling fast.
Cyberpunk 2077 and Humankind perform as expected (~60FPS on high/highest graphic settings), and my crypto miner is hashing at expected rates as well. Didn't notice any issues until the Witch's Festival update and was able to play as recently as last week without these issues.

GTX 2070 Super
i7-6700k @4.0Ghz
16.0 GB RAM

In this order, I have so far tried...

Restarting the client and launcher
Removing my AddOns folder and restarting again.
Restarting my PC.
Updating my graphics card driver (none available/most current).
Validating Steam file integrity.
Uninstalling/reinstalling the entire game.

...Yet the problem persists.

Suggestions on where to go from here?

KayleeSeranada

Tried again this morning to see if there was any luck, but none. I got a steady, continual 3 FPS in Wayrest with "ping" ranging from 260-375 (my network is fine, running at 120Mb down/6Mb up). System resources look acceptable while client was running, but typing because suddenly unbearable (it was the phenomenon where the characters spell out slowly behind your keystrokes) whereas I'm usually able to use my web browser effectively behind my client. The game's boot process seems normal with no hitches, glitches, or weird stuff until the 3D world loads in at character select.

Still out of ideas. Still haven't found another game that is performing out of character like ESO.

KayleeSeranada

KayleeSeranada wrote: »

but typing became suddenly unbearable

Hernsten

Hey, I think I have the exact same problem as you're describing (actually, this is the reason why I asked for credentials to post on this forum in the first place). Here's a video I recorded of the issue (sorry for the poor quality), please let me know if this is similar to what you're seeing.

This shows the FPS problem on Elder Scrolls Online, and comparing it to CSGO

Weird thing is like, as you said, it used to work just fine (>60 FPS on high quality graphic settings), and all of a sudden, like two weeks ago, I get <10 FPS constantly, even in the character selection menu, and even with graphic quality set to the lowest possible. I've also seen this issue with other games that used to work fine too, like Fall Guys, and Wreckfest.

Here's a video showing how the main menu on Fall Guys works just fine, but drops to <10 FPS in-game

Other games, like CSGO, continue to run just fine on high quality graphic settings (I also tried Stardew Valley, and Portal 2, and they don't have any FPS issues either). I'll try to test one of the games I've recently uninstalled to see if I can reproduce this on a newer game.

These are my specs:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (4 GB)
System Memory: 8 GB DDR4-2666 DDR4 SDRAMVideo Adapter
CPU Type: QuadCore Intel Core i5-6600K, 3917 MHz (39 x 100)
Motherboard Name: Asus Maximus VIII Hero (3 PCI-E x1, 3 PCI-E x16, 1 M.2, 4 DDR4 DIMM, Audio, Video, Gigabit LAN)
Disk Drive: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (250 GB, SATA-III)

Things I've tried so far:

• Rolling back to previous versions of the GPU driver. Current is 496.13, but I also tested on 472.12 and 471.96 as well.
• From the Nvidia control panel, changed OpenGL Rendering GPU from auto-select to my GPU
• From the Nvidia control panel, changed PhysX settings from auto-select to my GPU
• Checked whether they shared the same game engine (maybe it was a faulty shared library) but they don't.
  Since I have some games on the SSD and others on the HDD I thought that maybe that was it, but they're mixed (some games that work just fine are on the SSD and others on the HDD, and the same for the games with low FPS)
• I've also downloaded GPU-Z and looked at the sensors for GPU temp, power consumption and load, and they all go up once I start those games.

Dokata

Hello everyone!
I have the same problem. Recently, I began to observe the fall of the FPS. That being said, all other games work well and my laptop is fine. There is a conclusion from the service center.

ASUS N551JM
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860М (2 GB)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3L
CPU Type: Core i7 4710HQ


I also tried:
- Restarting the client and launcher
- Removing my AddOns folder and restarting again.
- Restarting my PC.
- Updating my graphics card driver (none available/most current).
- Validating Steam file integrity.
- Uninstalling/reinstalling the entire game.

ZOS_Bill

Enabling multithreaded rendering can lead to high GPU/CPU usage since FPS will be uncapped. We also have our basic troubleshooting for performance issues listed here if you don't have multithreading enabled.

Dokata

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

Enabling multithreaded rendering can lead to high GPU/CPU usage since FPS will be uncapped. We also have our basic troubleshooting for performance issues listed here if you don't have multithreading enabled.

I have done all this many times. I thought the problem was in my laptop, but I saw that people have exactly the same problems.

Hernsten

Dokata wrote: »

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

Enabling multithreaded rendering can lead to high GPU/CPU usage since FPS will be uncapped. We also have our basic troubleshooting for performance issues listed here if you don't have multithreading enabled.

I have done all this many times. I thought the problem was in my laptop, but I saw that people have exactly the same problems.

I got a notification from Nvidia yesterday saying that there was a new version of drivers available, so I installed it, rebooted and tried again, but the problem persists.

It's not like this is a sudden drop in FPS during some part of the game (like in cities or places with lots of people), and then it goes back to normal. It's a CONSTANT <10 FPS. Right from the character selection screen (you can have your character spin really fast, and you'll see it spin at 10 fps), and then in the game as well. It just doesn't go above 10 fps for me, whether I set the graphics in High or Low, it's the same.

The weird part is that it has been working great for the past 3 years on the exact same hardware. I'll try to follow the steps in the troubleshooting guide (again) now that I installed a driver update yesterday and then I'll post the results.

Thank you all for your help

ionicus

I am experiencing the exact same problem as the others are describing. Started approximately 2 days ago. FPS even on lowest video settings are <10 FPS constantly and the game is unplayable. Even low FPS on character selection screen. I have attempted all of the recommended troubleshooting settings, removed all add-ons, re-installed video driver, repaired and re-installed game all with no changes.

stryker_09

Also having this issue. Noticed it after the last patch was installed and was hoping it was just an issue with the increased number of players from the free plus event. Went ahead and did all the recommendations posted above but nothing has helped. Thinking about cancelling plus over it and picking up a different game.

ionicus

I was able to resolve this by uninstalling Citrix Workstation and all Citrix virtual audio and display adapters. Not sure if anyone else experiencing this is also running Citrix, but it solved it for me.

KayleeSeranada

ionicus wrote: »

I was able to resolve this by uninstalling Citrix Workstation and all Citrix virtual audio and display adapters. Not sure if anyone else experiencing this is also running Citrix, but it solved it for me.

Ya know what - I have that exact VDI, and sure as hell, preventing Citrix from booting on startup cleared the issue right up. A thousand cheers, thank you thank you!!

stryker_09

Removed Citrix as well and I’m back up and running. It was updated 10/19 which is close to when I noticed the issues began.

Thanks everyone!

Torethril

This should be stickied - I had this exact same issue. Definitely a problem with bad coding on ZOSes end with the most recent update. I normally run +50 fps except in Trials and Cyrodiil, then down to single digit FPS in any situation. ESO is the only game that runs this way, so it's definitely an ESO / ZOS issue. Totally solved by uninstalling Citrix, which I use occasionally for work.

ZOS_Bill

Thank you for updating the thread and letting us know the issue is resolved. We are now closing the thread from further postings.