Apocalyptic frame dropping and stutters, been wrangling with it for some while now.

Chimaera13

The problem began manifesting after update 32. It might have occurred before, but clearly to no memorable severity.

My FPS will drop below 10 and appear to stutter for several seconds, sometimes just a few seconds and other times quite a bit longer. The audio will also be slightly slowed and stutter in syncopation with frames. This happens most frequently with intense content such as battle grounds, but will happen at any time randomly. At its worst it was occurring about every 20 seconds for no less than ~5 seconds.

I've tried every proposed solution I could find online, up to using DirectX developer tools and manual (editing file) settings tweaks.

So far, I've only found four things that mitigate the problem, though they do not solve it. I'm hoping by posting here that I might get some semblance of support that in-game tickets did not receive. Two of the mitigations worked only after upgrading to Windows 11, which will hopefully hold; I can't speak to their longevity as I've only just upgraded the OS. The four mitigations are as follows:
Before updating to Windows 11:

• Activating Radeon Chill which limits frames to a maximum while movement is occurring and otherwise keeps the framerate down to 30.
• Running on Linux via Steam/Proton (obviously not a Windows specific solution, but a clue certainly.

After updating to Windows 11 the following worked, but did not before:

• Disabling 'Fullscreen Optimizations" under the compatibility tab of properties for the ESO64 binary. Most notably, my FPS jumped to nearly double the values it'd otherwise have with the same graphical options enabled.
• Running the client as Fullscreen(Windowed) seems to massively mitigate the frequency and duration of these problem instances. We shall see if this continues to be true, or if it was a fluke.

The most credible explanation I found was that this issue which can be seen in other games is caused by issues with the DX11 emulation layer for DX12. Some users reported using the DirectX Control Panel (DXCPL) to get around this. Near as I can tell, that has no effect whatsoever.

System Specifications:

System Information report written at: 12/05/21 16:12:34
System Name: NITROWIN
[System Summary]

Item Value
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Version 10.0.22000 Build 22000
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name NITROWIN
System Manufacturer Acer
System Model Nitro AN515-43
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU 0000000000000000
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, 2100 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Insyde Corp. V1.12, 11/5/2020
SMBIOS Version 3.1
Embedded Controller Version 1.07
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer PK
BaseBoard Product Octavia_PKS
BaseBoard Version V1.12
Platform Role Mobile
Secure Boot State Off
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.22000.1"
User Name NITROWIN\chima
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 13.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 7.20 GB
Total Virtual Memory 21.4 GB
Available Virtual Memory 9.42 GB
Page File Space 7.50 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Device Encryption Support Elevation Required to View
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes



[Sound Device]

Item Value
Name Realtek Audio
Manufacturer Realtek
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0255&SUBSYS_10251366&REV_1000\5&17CA7210&0&0001
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\RTKVHD64.SYS (6.0.8991.1, 5.81 MB (6,088,288 bytes), 11/8/2021 3:22 PM)

Name AMD Streaming Audio Device
Manufacturer AMD
Status OK
PNP Device ID ROOT\AMDSAFD&FUN_01&REV_01\0000
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\AMDSAFD.INF_AMD64_50FEE1227E96EC14\AMDSAFD.SYS (1.0.0.4, 98.43 KB (100,792 bytes), 11/8/2021 2:33 PM)

Name AMD High Definition Audio Device
Manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices
Status OK
PNP Device ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_1002&DEV_AA01&SUBSYS_00AA0100&REV_1007\5&DEA157B&0&0001
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ATIHDWT6.SYS (10.0.1.21, 240.43 KB (246,200 bytes), 11/8/2021 2:33 PM)

[Display]

Item Value
Name AMD Radeon(TM) Vega 8 Graphics
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_15D8&SUBSYS_13661025&REV_C2\4&35FEB52A&0&0041
Adapter Type AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x15D8), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. compatible
Adapter Description AMD Radeon(TM) Vega 8 Graphics
Adapter RAM (2,147,483,648) bytes
Installed Drivers C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\amdxc64.dll
Driver Version 30.0.13037.1003
INF File oem1.inf (ati2mtag_Picasso section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1920 x 1080 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0x90000000-0x9FFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xA0000000-0xA01FFFFF
I/O Port 0x00001000-0x000010FF
Memory Address 0xC0800000-0xC087FFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967261
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967260
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967259
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\U0373733.INF_AMD64_A70FCD9F085A1B58\B373745\AMDKMDAG.SYS (30.0.13037.1003, 76.81 MB (80,543,792 bytes), 11/21/2021 11:49 PM)

Name Radeon RX 560X Series
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_67EF&SUBSYS_13671025&REV_C0\4&1A11CB31&0&0009
Adapter Type AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x67EF), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. compatible
Adapter Description Radeon RX 560X Series
Adapter RAM (1,048,576) bytes
Installed Drivers C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\aticfx64.dll,C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\u0373733.inf_amd64_a70fcd9f085a1b58\B373745\amdxc64.dll
Driver Version 30.0.13037.1003
INF File oem1.inf (ati2mtag_Polaris11 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries Not Available
Resolution Not Available
Bits/Pixel Not Available
Memory Address 0xB0000000-0xC01FFFFF
Memory Address 0xC0000000-0xC01FFFFF
I/O Port 0x00003F00-0x00003FFF
Memory Address 0xC0B00000-0xC0BFFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 4294967256
Driver C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\U0373733.INF_AMD64_A70FCD9F085A1B58\B373745\AMDKMDAG.SYS (30.0.13037.1003, 76.81 MB (80,543,792 bytes), 11/21/2021 11:49 PM)

Interesting Notes:

Linux via Steam/Proton with DXVK (DirectX to Vulkan API layer) gives no stuttering, though the average framerate is lower. Very usable though.
Under Windows 11 ambient occlusion settings past HBAO create a weird shadow between character legs, and other odd visual artifacts were observed. Artifacts were a black square apparently on an exterior wall of Daggerfall, and occasional distortion effect across the screen. Screen space GI created some very odd shadow effects where shadows were being cast from various objects, similar to God Rays.

etchedpixels

The big U32 thing was the threaded rendering. Does life improve if you go into the graphics settings and turn off the multi-threaded rendering stuff ?

ZOS_Bill

We have posted troubleshooting steps here that can often help with fps and performance issues in ESO.

Chimaera13

etchedpixels wrote: »

The big U32 thing was the threaded rendering. Does life improve if you go into the graphics settings and turn off the multi-threaded rendering stuff ?

No, it gets dramatically worse.

Chimaera13

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

We have posted troubleshooting steps here that can often help with fps and performance issues in ESO.

I did all of that quite some time ago. I since moved on to other measures.

Barbara73

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

We have posted troubleshooting steps here that can often help with fps and performance issues in ESO.

I am having the same issue drop in frame rates to 7 every few min. Crashes to desktop several times a day since the patch 2 weeks ago. BUT, this only happens on the NA server on the EU server I am having no issues and I am in the US playing.


That site is a dead end.

ZOS_Bill

@Barbara73

We have sent you a forum PM to help with your issue in starting a support ticket.

Chimaera13

I put a support ticket in too. There has yet to be a reply.

Chimaera13

Still no response from support

ZOS_Bill

@Chimaera13

Please provide your current ticket number in this thread so we can check the ticket status.

Chimaera13

ZOS_BillE wrote: »

@Chimaera13

Please provide your current ticket number in this thread so we can check the ticket status.

I can't. The ticket was responded to in the support dashboard. I never received an e-mail showing that I had received a response, and so by the time I looked again the ticket was "solved" and closed.

ZOS_Bill

@Chimaera13

Our help article linked below goes over how you can check on the ticket number.

How do I update or check on my support ticket for The Elder Scrolls Online?