Massive Performance Issue

Gabriel_H · January 18

So, in the last few weeks I have been experiencing various glitches we will call them.

In crowded overland, I'll get re-load screens now and then - although it was particularly bad during New Life, which is when these glitches started.
In instanced content, I'll get the occassional skill animation not playing fully - it's ~90% of the time jabs, which will do the hand/arm animation, but the spear won't be there. There is occassional sound dropping that happens at the same time.

It's been like that since New Life, but today I was in IA and the performance was dire.

The sound dropping was every 30s or so.
The animations not showing not only affected my skills but the mob spiky animation that signifies an incoming heavy attack or channel.
The mob packs would take 5/10 seconds to render in - meaning I was taking damage from mobs I couldn't see.
The boss chest spawns would take 5/10 seconds to render in.
Skils needed to be pressed twice so much I just ended up double casting half the time.

During all of this my FPS was stable and it's usual self. My ping was stable and always below 100ms. My internet connection was fine. My game never froze, my toon kept moving, there was no stuttering.

I've benchmarked my PC, it's the same as it ever was.
I've tested my internet connection, there are no problems.
I've got no issues with any other games.

Is anybody else experiencing anything like this?

Update 1: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8419803/#Comment_8419803

Update 2: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8419843/#Comment_8419843

Update 3: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8420855/#Comment_8420855

SummersetCitizen · January 18

Nope.

ShutUpitsRed · January 18

I have it on sound authority that PvE doesn't have performance issues.

freespirit · January 18

Nothing like you describe at all and no noticeable issues with jabs on any of my many Templars.

SaffronCitrusflower · January 18

freespirit wrote: »

Nothing like you describe at all and no noticeable issues with jabs on any of my many Templars.

They still have that dorky night hollow stave in place of the actual jabs animation though. That will be a problem forever apparently.

SneaK · January 18

Really? No way!

Sure it’s not a hardware issue, or your ISP?

I was told PvE doesn’t lag.

freespirit · January 18

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Nothing like you describe at all and no noticeable issues with jabs on any of my many Templars.

They still have that dorky night hollow stave in place of the actual jabs animation though. That will be a problem forever apparently.

Maybe they will shock us when Templar gets its class refresh?? Hint, hint @ZoS

Gabriel_H · January 18

SneaK wrote: »

Really? No way!

Sure it’s not a hardware issue, or your ISP?

I was told PvE doesn’t lag.

If you noticed I said there was no lag. /shrug

SneaK · January 18

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Really? No way!

Sure it’s not a hardware issue, or your ISP?

I was told PvE doesn’t lag.

If you noticed I said there was no lag. /shrug

Oh my bad, delayed skills and mobs loading in would usually mean lag… Ya know, “fall behind in movement, progress, or development; not keep pace with another or others.”

Here, these are the questions I was asked to help solve these exact same issues.

Where does this lag occur for you?
What are your graphic settings?
What is your ISP like?
How often does this occur?
How big are the lag spikes?
How long do the lag spikes last?

AzuraFan · January 18

I haven't experienced any of the problems you've described.

I have the occasional session where crafting seems to lag, but by occasional I mean a few times a year. That's it.

SolarRune · January 18

There was someone on our trial in vDSR tonight who was complaining about mobs not loading. There was no visible skipping or jumping around, and everyone else was fine. Tried changing graphics settings - and that had no impact. But timeframes dont match, she says it's only been happening since maintenance last week, before that was fine, no changes or updated drivers, and no lag, just mobs not loading.

Kappachi · January 18

has nobody mentioned the potential of an addon causing this? outdated or broken addons cause all sorts of issues. anyways no I have never seen this bug occur even once. possibly you need to reinstall the game or check integrity of the files using the built in thing too.

ESO_player123 · January 19

Have not experience anything like this.

Gabriel_H · January 19

So I may have found the offender. I turned off https://amd.com/en/products/software/adrenalin/radeon-software-chill.html and it seems to have stopped happening.

Orbital78 · January 19

I haven't been using Radeon software for awhile, so cannot input on that. The Nvidia software seems fine, as has been overland performance after the wall event. Anytime there are large events I get some lag and render issues, probably bottlenecking my system somewhere. Ryzen 5 5600 and 3070FE are starting to age, but most content I can turn most settings near max even at 3440x1440. My backup system Ryzen 5 1600 and 1060 is another story, but even it works on medium settings for most things.

Gabriel_H · January 19

Orbital78 wrote: »

I haven't been using Radeon software for awhile, so cannot input on that. The Nvidia software seems fine, as has been overland performance after the wall event. Anytime there are large events I get some lag and render issues, probably bottlenecking my system somewhere. Ryzen 5 5600 and 3070FE are starting to age, but most content I can turn most settings near max even at 3440x1440. My backup system Ryzen 5 1600 and 1060 is another story, but even it works on medium settings for most things.

It's only been happening since the last update or so, and only on ESO. It's almost like Chill isn't getting told it needs to ramp up, and it's only when the action really starts it renders the mobs in.

I've not entirely ruled out a memory leak of some form, as the problem did seem to get worse the longer I played (I did 2 x 3.5 hour IA runs and towards the end I was running around waiting to be able to see the mobs).

Edit: So, while turning off Chill helped for the first 30 mins or so, the longer I play the more frequently it happens. I've even changed graphics cards and it is still happening.

Just to clarify: There are periods where the only sound playing is footsteps, the sound of light attacking and blocking. This is then followed by mob packs not rendering when moving to their spawn point for 5/10 seconds. They can still hit me, but I cannot use a targetted skill against them. My VRAM use never exceeds 75%, and my GPU use never exceeds 80%, and RAM is running at 11GB out of 32GB.

It feels like a memory leak, or a bottleneck somewhere in the graphics process, but it is only happening with ESO, and my benchmarks are where they have always been.

YandereGirlfriend · January 19

Gabriel_H wrote: »

So I may have found the offender. I turned off https://amd.com/en/products/software/adrenalin/radeon-software-chill.html and it seems to have stopped happening.

I would just cap your frames manually in the ini file to whatever you want them to be.

Apart from that, CPU bottlenecking is where this game typically breaks bad and that is the probably the next area that should be investigated.

The game loves to overwrite your ini file when it updates so if you had something like your cores manually capped then it might have been undone without you knowing.

Gabriel_H · January 20

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

So I may have found the offender. I turned off https://amd.com/en/products/software/adrenalin/radeon-software-chill.html and it seems to have stopped happening.

I would just cap your frames manually in the ini file to whatever you want them to be.

Apart from that, CPU bottlenecking is where this game typically breaks bad and that is the probably the next area that should be investigated.

The game loves to overwrite your ini file when it updates so if you had something like your cores manually capped then it might have been undone without you knowing.

I've checked all of that. It's infuriating. It's not like I'm a tech novice either, which just makes it more annoying. I changed the settings down to Medium to see if that was the problem.

CPU: Maxes out at 75%, all cores active
RAM: Maxes out at 33% (including system use)
GPU: Maxes out at 75%
VRAM: Maxes out at 60%
Checked my SSD/HDD speeds and they are where they should be.
FPS: A stable 60fps (I don't need it higher)

This is only happening in ESO. I have other games that are far more graphically demanding.

If I had hair I'd be tearing it out.

Edit: The part that is baffling me is that it's like having the framerate drop to <10fps for 10 seconds, but everything I have, every logger I've used says that it just not the case.

Gabriel_H · 4:42AM

Tried the nuclear option of a re-install, did not work.

Went for a hail-mary. I turned the clock speed on my VRAM down - yes down, not up - to below factory default and just did 3 arcs in IA without issue. So, possibly problem resolved. Won't feel comfortable with it until I get a couple of dungeons in without it happening.

Side Note: WT ... A 127GB download through Steam, followed by a 105GB download through the launcher, for a total on-disk space of 147GB. Someone might want to look at that @ZOS.

CiprianDP · 10:10AM

Just a mention, that I have played this game with VSync on and a 60 fps cap for almost 2 years and had various issues at times, specially in heavy graphic/calculations content like trials (big fps drops, occasional freezing for 3-5 seconds, rubberbanding and more) - as I have also thought 60 fps is more than enough. I joggled with video quality settings multiple times, but have never touched that VSync on and 60 fps cap on the ini file. Always thought it's good for my PC as well, not pushing it to the max.

That, until few months ago when I disabled Vsync and altered the fps cap in the ini file (as I got a new ultrawide monitor). Just let me put it this way, I wish I've done this much sooner. Most of the problems disappeared, everything is fluid now, and trials are fun again.

So just an experience from my side, maybe it might help you.