Extreme FPS drops

kinguardian

Thank goodness I was breaking my head over it. I went through everything on my end and other stuff runs fine except for eso. I am on pc eu

Frayton

It's really bad since the latest patch.

method__01

576.80 nVidia drivers releashed yesterday,just installed and start testing

TheMajority

well, still bad performance. at this rate I go on, do endeavor, and go out again...it's not on my end because all other game work totally fine after I do checks and everything...

katanagirl1

On PS performance is really bad since the patch. Riften is suffering for having the subclassing questgiver in the area. Everyone around there is a black silhouette for 4-5 seconds when you near the wayshrine. The frame rate seems to drop severely.

In general, frame rate seems to be unstable in many populated areas.

Masteroshi430

This already fixed lag & stuttering during loading screens for a dozen of players but one person reported it fixed FPS drops in crowded towns, IDK maybe it's worth trying and reporting in the thread?
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8329469/#Comment_8329469

Cooperharley

I, too, have noticed some pretty substantial FPS drops on PS5 pro, which is usually buttery smooth. It always happens for whatever reason when I’m solo in an instance now post-U46

Northwold

TheMajority wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

The latest driver versions of the nividia display drivers are having some serious issues with the 50 and 40 series. Issues important enough where some gaming companies are even telling players with a 40 series GPU to only use the 566.36 nvidia driver version as that is the most recent and last stable one. Might be worth taking a look if you are having fps issues.

I'd reiterate this. Nvidia have been releasing drivers that do weird things to games (and Windows) for months now, with no sign of them getting any closer to sorting this mess out. Rolling back to an earlier driver if you're on an Nvidia card is a good place to start, if only to eliminate the issue from troubleshooting. I've seen problems in everything from Cyberpunk to ESO to Notepad. It's ridiculous.

To which driver do you suggest to revert? Because it seem like many recent driver are just bad

A while back when I was gaming more I found someone had put online a driver from two months previously and used that. NB there may be problem in ESO arising independently of the driver because of the patch. I was experiencing unexplained weird frame time issues with ESO *before* that and tales of tribute, of all things, looked like it was running at about 8 FPS. I had also experienced issues in various games arising out of the 24h2 windows update, re which see link posted above by someone else.

Anysra

I am genuinely relieved to have come across this forum. I was beginning to seriously question whether my PC was malfunctioning, as I have thoroughly inspected every aspect, both hardware and software related. I have ensured that all drivers and firmware are fully up to date, yet ESO remains frustratingly laggy in terms of FPS, despite my server ping consistently staying below 70–80 ms.

What puzzles me is that I have played ESO before with even higher pings without experiencing any stuttering or noticeable FPS slowdowns. Lately, however, it feels as if ESO is not properly utilizing my system’s capabilities. While my counter shows 120 FPS, it simply does not feel smooth at all, and at times it inexplicably drops below 60 FPS.

For context: I have never encountered any performance issues with ESO until quite recently, this sudden drop in performance has persisted and shows no signs of resolving on its own.

My current specs:
RTX 4090
Ryzen 9 9900X3D
32 GB RAM @ 3600 MHz

NoticeMeArkay

Freshly plucked from today's PTS patch notes. I don't know if there's a connection but it looks like they are looking into multiple reports on performance issues.

MikeSkyrim333

I solved this problem by reinstalling Windows and disabling updates, previously there were terrible FPS drops

LadyGP

4090 amd 3d cpu here...

this is bad guy. This fps drop issue is insane. Cyro right now is going down to like 10 frames and with the lag... it's. Oof.

Mathius_Mordred

If you have an RTX GPU make sure to enable DLSS in the video settings.

LadyGP

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

If you have an RTX GPU make sure to enable DLSS in the video settings.

These fps issues and complains are across all platforms, all system types, all areas of the game. There is something very deep going on. These complains are far to loud to be an isolated thing. @ZOS_Kevin

TyrTrolas

This started right after the multi-class update, probably due to an increase in effects or something...

Happens whenever I go to a crowded area.

Reizka

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080, RAM 16GB.

Mathius_Mordred

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

Reizka

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

I have multiple drives. M2 NVMe and sata SSD and neither works better than the other for ESO. And they're definitely not failing. LIke i said, everything else works just fine and normal. I suspect the issue is either in game, nvidia drivers or windows 11. Or some combination of those. Had 0 problems on Windows 10.

Sarannah

Reizka wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

I have multiple drives. M2 NVMe and sata SSD and neither works. And they're definitely not failing. LIke i said, everything else works just fine and normal.

Personally I would run a windows repair, as I doubt the drives are failing. It is more likely something ended up corrupted with the new windows install for some reason. Also, make sure to install your chipset/audio/network/SATA/etc drivers for your motherboard. And as with any clean install, check ALL settings for everything and see which background programs are running. Microsoft likes to send itself data and runs lots of things you don't need in the background, turn these off.

Mathius_Mordred

Reizka wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

I have multiple drives. M2 NVMe and sata SSD and neither works better than the other for ESO. And they're definitely not failing. LIke i said, everything else works just fine and normal. I suspect the issue is either in game, nvidia drivers or windows 11. Or some combination of those. Had 0 problems on Windows 10.

Try these ideas

https://g.co/gemini/share/87cd54e98134

Reizka

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

I have multiple drives. M2 NVMe and sata SSD and neither works better than the other for ESO. And they're definitely not failing. LIke i said, everything else works just fine and normal. I suspect the issue is either in game, nvidia drivers or windows 11. Or some combination of those. Had 0 problems on Windows 10.

Try these ideas

https://g.co/gemini/share/87cd54e98134

Thanks for the suggestion. Funny thing is i already tried all of them. Chat GPT suggested pretty much all those same exact things few days back.

Reizka

Sarannah wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

Reizka wrote: »

I recently updated my system from Windows 10 to Windows 11. ESO used to work fine before, no problems. Now its just stuttering, freezing and even crashing. Sometimes it freezes my pc for a moment. ESO usually recovers after a freeze but most of the time it just crashes to desktop. Every other program and game works just fine. I even did another Windows 11 installation, this time it was clean install but nothing changed. I have tried different Nvidia drivers and updated everything i can. I tried low and ultra graphics settings and playing without any addons but issues just remain. Game is currently pretty much unplayable for me. I have a decent pc, that used to be more than enough for ESO. And still should be! So specs are not an issue. CPU i7 9700k, GPU RTX 3080.

This is not what most of us are experiencing, your issue sounds like hardware to be honest. Check your SSD, it could be failing.

I have multiple drives. M2 NVMe and sata SSD and neither works. And they're definitely not failing. LIke i said, everything else works just fine and normal.

Personally I would run a windows repair, as I doubt the drives are failing. It is more likely something ended up corrupted with the new windows install for some reason. Also, make sure to install your chipset/audio/network/SATA/etc drivers for your motherboard. And as with any clean install, check ALL settings for everything and see which background programs are running. Microsoft likes to send itself data and runs lots of things you don't need in the background, turn these off.

Already made sure i have every possible driver and the most recent version of those drivers. I have tried to run eso with minimal background apps running but that doesn't change anything. I think i'll be playing other things for now and wait for more updates for windows, gpu drivers and maybe even eso's next major update. See if those change anything. Getting kinda sick of this troubleshooting since i feel i've pretty much gone through every possible fix at this point. Not saying that i ain't open for more suggestions how to fix this. Thanks for trying to help!

Yökarhu

And we shouldn't jump all over the place to try find how to make a game work. It's not just one or two person's problem.
I really hope they fix this. I have also spent hours trying to optimize everything, still no help. Even putting all graphics as low (or off) as they go, the stuttering in cities is wild. Not to mention the 96% GPU usage spikes during loading in to game and fast traveling. RIP the youtube video I was watching while collecting surveys.

YandereGirlfriend

Yökarhu wrote: »

And we shouldn't jump all over the place to try find how to make a game work. It's not just one or two person's problem.
I really hope they fix this. I have also spent hours trying to optimize everything, still no help. Even putting all graphics as low (or off) as they go, the stuttering in cities is wild. Not to mention the 96% GPU usage spikes during loading in to game and fast traveling. RIP the youtube video I was watching while collecting surveys.

Pretty sure that you can cap your frames and eliminate the load screen issue.

katanagirl1

LadyGP wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

If you have an RTX GPU make sure to enable DLSS in the video settings.

These fps issues and complains are across all platforms, all system types, all areas of the game. There is something very deep going on. These complains are far to loud to be an isolated thing. @ZOS_Kevin

Yes, please don’t forget those of us on console. I have the Performance option on PS5 which is supposed to guarantee 60 fps and I often get far less than that.

There aren’t any more options that I know of that we can use to address this problem.

I also have seen severe performance degradation in the same timeframe as you have on PC.

DenverRalphy

katanagirl1 wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

If you have an RTX GPU make sure to enable DLSS in the video settings.

These fps issues and complains are across all platforms, all system types, all areas of the game. There is something very deep going on. These complains are far to loud to be an isolated thing. @ZOS_Kevin

Yes, please don’t forget those of us on console. I have the Performance option on PS5 which is supposed to guarantee 60 fps and I often get far less than that.

There aren’t any more options that I know of that we can use to address this problem.

I also have seen severe performance degradation in the same timeframe as you have on PC.

Yeah. On PS5 I find that in IA all will be fine, until towards the end of Arc 2 the FPS starts to degrade and by the end of Arc 3 it's pretty bad. Step in to Arc 4, and it's bordering on unplayable.

Dunno when this behavior started as I had recently stopped going into IA regularly and even then rarely beyond the Arc 2 Marauder. But the symptoms are definitely similar to the effects of a memory leak issue. Dynamic objects not completely removed from memory after they're no longer used. Then once I end my IA session (by timing out after leaving or by spinning the hourglass), the problem goes away (mostly, not entirely).

As well, outside of IA the same degradation happens. Just much more slowly. So much so that you don't notice it until it's too late.

katanagirl1

DenverRalphy wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

If you have an RTX GPU make sure to enable DLSS in the video settings.

These fps issues and complains are across all platforms, all system types, all areas of the game. There is something very deep going on. These complains are far to loud to be an isolated thing. @ZOS_Kevin

Yes, please don’t forget those of us on console. I have the Performance option on PS5 which is supposed to guarantee 60 fps and I often get far less than that.

There aren’t any more options that I know of that we can use to address this problem.

I also have seen severe performance degradation in the same timeframe as you have on PC.

Yeah. On PS5 I find that in IA all will be fine, until towards the end of Arc 2 the FPS starts to degrade and by the end of Arc 3 it's pretty bad. Step in to Arc 4, and it's bordering on unplayable.

Dunno when this behavior started as I had recently stopped going into IA regularly and even then rarely beyond the Arc 2 Marauder. But the symptoms are definitely similar to the effects of a memory leak issue. Dynamic objects not completely removed from memory after they're no longer used. Then once I end my IA session (by timing out after leaving or by spinning the hourglass), the problem goes away (mostly, not entirely).

As well, outside of IA the same degradation happens. Just much more slowly. So much so that you don't notice it until it's too late.

For me, IA has had much worse frame rate drops than even busy Cyrodiil Gray Host campaign for a long time. I only get partially through arc 2 and quit when I get the 10 fabled quest done. The worst areas are where the large light diffuser objects are present. Frame rate drops to less than 10 I am guessing. It’s like a slideshow.

Busy cities are bad too, and even Riften has low frame rate drops when doing crafting dailies and turning them in. I mentioned before that near wayshrines I am regularly seeing black silhouettes of players on PS5.

Navaac223

20 fps is extreme ? Absolute casual. I reach 5 fps in trials
But yeah, I've noticed that it got worse over the years, especially after u46

Sarannah

Yökarhu wrote: »

And we shouldn't jump all over the place to try find how to make a game work. It's not just one or two person's problem.
I really hope they fix this. I have also spent hours trying to optimize everything, still no help. Even putting all graphics as low (or off) as they go, the stuttering in cities is wild. Not to mention the 96% GPU usage spikes during loading in to game and fast traveling. RIP the youtube video I was watching while collecting surveys.

Well, the problem with a handful of games is they are really heavy on the hardware and internet connection(including ESO). Stressing and testing them to their limits. So when even the slightest thing is wrong with your specs(hardware/software), you will notice. Even if this slightest thing is a setting, broken hardware, old driver, conflicting software, etc.

Personally I always end up playing the heaviest-to-run games for some reason. The downside is, sometimes things go wrong or don't work. The upside is, due to all the troubleshooting I know when my computer isn't at it's most perfect state and when/how to fix it.

PS: ZOS has a new patch in on the PTS that helps with FPS problems(not on live yet). Not saying this will solve everyone's issue with FPS drops, but this may atleast help those with that specific FPS drop issue.

Navaac223 wrote: »

20 fps is extreme ? Absolute casual. I reach 5 fps in trials
But yeah, I've noticed that it got worse over the years, especially after u46

For all those players having issues, please state your full specs, resolution you play in, and software you use, maybe also include ISP and general location for connectivity issues. This way ZOS, and maybe players, have a bigger chance of being able to help you or to narrow down the issue(s). The more players who can play carefree, the better!

Advice: If your FPS drops that low, it sounds like a software conflict to me. Try experimenting with different AA types, as some AA types may not work or gives issues with some specific hardware. Other things to try: cap your FPS(driver software) and lower some specs like view distance, particle effects, player effects, specific render distances, bloom, etc.

Note: ZOS should really implement a FPS cap setting to the game. This would make a perfect environmental sustainability setting, and would be very useful for players. (Personally I have a 144hz monitor, but cap ESO at 61 FPS with nvidia control panel as I do not notice the difference and it keeps my computer much cooler while playing in 4k)

Navaac223

Sarannah wrote: »

Navaac223 wrote: »

20 fps is extreme ? Absolute casual. I reach 5 fps in trials
But yeah, I've noticed that it got worse over the years, especially after u46

For all those players having issues, please state your full specs, resolution you play in, and software you use, maybe also include ISP and general location for connectivity issues. This way ZOS, and maybe players, have a bigger chance of being able to help you or to narrow down the issue(s). The more players who can play carefree, the better!

Advice: If your FPS drops that low, it sounds like a software conflict to me. Try experimenting with different AA types, as some AA types may not work or gives issues with some specific hardware. Other things to try: cap your FPS(driver software) and lower some specs like view distance, particle effects, player effects, specific render

Thank you for your concerns, I think the problems mostly come from my 100 addons and my 15 years old computer. With the lowest quality for everything, including subsampling quality, I can reach a decent ammount of fps though