[Bug] Memory leak. Confirmed FPS issue for many players. (Updated with tips!)

Khaos_Bane · November 2015

zerosingularity wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

It's not a memory leak though. I did some digging on the subject (intermittent FPS drop to 10fps) and there was no indication of a memory leak when and while it happens.

Today I fully monitored both CPU and GPU and I agree it does not seem to be a memory leak.

Upon onset of symptoms system memory was at 8gb/16gb, CPU was never past around 50% on all cores, GPU never went past 75%, although GPU memory was always at 1900-2000/2048. This was always at that number though even at play start, so I think the game just uses a lot of video memory all the time.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't ESO allocate a certain amount of memory(for the CPU) upon initializing and never increase beyond this amount? If this is the case, then when the memory is filled from all kinds of particles and effects, it would need to flush, but is having trouble doing so. Since the allocated memory is full, the CPU has trouble getting the data needed for processing and sending to the GPU, thus causing the FPS to crash. Zoning would force the memory to empty in order to load in a new zone, which is why things magically get better when people zone or re-log.

This is my speculation, but wouldn't surprise me if some of it is spot on or flat out wrong.

I believe you are thinking of the addons take a fixed amount of memory. Need more flushing of all the particles !

zerosingularity · November 2015

Khaos_Bane wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

It's not a memory leak though. I did some digging on the subject (intermittent FPS drop to 10fps) and there was no indication of a memory leak when and while it happens.

Today I fully monitored both CPU and GPU and I agree it does not seem to be a memory leak.

Upon onset of symptoms system memory was at 8gb/16gb, CPU was never past around 50% on all cores, GPU never went past 75%, although GPU memory was always at 1900-2000/2048. This was always at that number though even at play start, so I think the game just uses a lot of video memory all the time.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't ESO allocate a certain amount of memory(for the CPU) upon initializing and never increase beyond this amount? If this is the case, then when the memory is filled from all kinds of particles and effects, it would need to flush, but is having trouble doing so. Since the allocated memory is full, the CPU has trouble getting the data needed for processing and sending to the GPU, thus causing the FPS to crash. Zoning would force the memory to empty in order to load in a new zone, which is why things magically get better when people zone or re-log.

This is my speculation, but wouldn't surprise me if some of it is spot on or flat out wrong.

I believe you are thinking of the addons take a fixed amount of memory. Need more flushing of all the particles !

Nah, not talking about the addons. I never hit my LUA memory limit, though I think FTC might need some LUA memory flushing. The FPS drops occur without addons being involved. (Turn them all off, reload UI and the fps is still super low.)

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 · November 2015

After IC,after playing for long (2-3 hrs) My fps drops and i have a delay on turning.Yup lets say im sprinting,then move my mouse to turn around,it wont turn,it will take several seconds to turn./reloadui and log-off dont fix it.A restart of the game fix it.

TheDarkShadow · November 2015

Yes, I have this trouble in some dungeons. The dwemer public dungeon in Wrtohgar for example, or Crypt of Hearts. Everything fine until I enter combat with a big group of mobs, and use AoE, FPS drops horribly, even in low setting. Note that I usually run high and have no FPS problem in many cases, this only happen now and then.

Lexxypwns · November 2015

I also have this problem, can't grind, can't pvp, can only quest (no soft grinding even) without things going south quickly, it is getting to the point that when I close the game to restart it I just usually don't bother restarting and find something else to do

k2blader · November 2015

Good thread.

Yes, I am having some sort of "memory leak" issue. I can play for ~1-2 hours then the framerate begins to drop, game becomes very choppy, and Cyrodiil becomes a sort of slideshow.

Reloadui doesn't help it. I have to do a relog, and even after that things aren't improved 100%.

blabafat · November 2015

Yep there is an issue for sure. My frames dip really low every now and then. (below 10)

Volkodav · November 2015

I keep getting LUI loss pop ups.Is this what the OP means? Probably not,but I cant figure what they are.

Aletheion · November 2015

I get the 10 FPS glitch quite often and it has nothing to do with particles or settings or addons for sure. I can be alone in a bank in some random town and it will do it out of nowhere. Sometimes for a minute and sometimes I have to log to get it to stop doing that. Maybe if I waited long enough it would stop.

On a few occasions it will disconnect me from the game when it happens and I wait to see what it's going to do, but that's not the norm.

-Alethieon

Draxys · November 2015

Also had abnormally bad performance in pvp fights this patch (yes, even worse than the normally crap). Nothing super, just average specs on my comp, windows 10... Before, I used to get 10-20 frames in the really bad performance scenarios, now it's less than 5.

zerosingularity · November 2015

I hit a fancy 1 FPS last night in PVP for a good 10 seconds because of this, ONE FPS. Afterwards I stayed at about 30 FPS until I re-logged, which magically fixed the issue.

I feel wrong for doing this, but I feel I must perform a summoning. Would the great and powerful Daedric Prince(sess?) @ZOS_GinaBruno please grace us with your presence and give us some comforting words?

There is no proof it is related to the memory, but there is definitely a bug somewhere affecting us. And to clarify for others, this has nothing to do with latency, which I believe ZOS is currently trying to address. This FPS issue is everywhere, and happens faster when more effects are happening, and requires a re-log to fix.

RinaldoGandolphi · November 2015

I don't have any memory leak..i played 6 hours straight yesterday without a single crash or issue. No FPS issues either.

I do run AMD hardware though.....seems like everyone that has issues is using Nvidia.

sounds like an issue with Nvidia's drivers to me and not ESO...i have seen none of these missing textures, or textures looking all weird, or any FPS drops or memory leaks....or any of that stuff. I also run 1440p resolution so i would see these issues far sooner then someone on 1080P

I would submit a feedback form to Nvidia, the hardware vendors (Both AMD and Nvidia) are good at fixing issues if you report them....AMD fixed a memory leak issue in the last Catalyst Beta that i reported, I have had no issues with ESO since as it was fixed with 15.10 beta release....so if your on AMD and not running the 15-11 Beta driver, i'd suggest upgrading.

if your on Nvidia, you need to contact them and tell them the steps to reproduce it, if its not on their end, they will contact ZOS and Nvidia has a much better chance of getting things fixed quickly then we do.

Asherons_Call · November 2015

I am not seeing fps issues on ps4. I do however take 90 seconds to load my character upon login and 45 seconds to load in between zones

zerosingularity · November 2015

If the problem happens to be nVidia drivers (not too likely since some people with nVidia GPUs have no problem), then getting them to fix it would be easier with the weight of a company behind the request as opposed to a single person. This issue is becoming more and more frustrating, and only really started with the IC update.

Moonshadow66 · November 2015

GTX 460 (which is now the current minimum requirement), Win7 64 bit, 4GB RAM. No crashes. Constant 60 fps, in crowded towns 40+ fps. No issues here.

I remember the times between Update 5 and Update 6 when I was still running the game on WinXP and crashed every 5 minutes (on good days!), and when every loading screen took 30+ minutes without an exception. Fps below 10.
How I was laughed at...

Just saying!

Xendyn · November 2015

Nope, AMD here.

daswahnsinn · November 2015

I have the same issue in Cyrodiil and in PVE zones. My average FPS is 30 but have seen 90(not sure if that was a glitch). I feel that ZoS doesn't have good enough bandwidth to push this game out, but this is just my opinion,

Specs:
XFX Radeon R9 280X R9-280X-TDFD 3GB 384-Bit
AMD Radeon SSD Radeon R7 120GB
AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition Quad-Core 3.2 (Over-clocked to 3.7)

Flaminir · November 2015

Yes had exactly the same. Glitches, and BIG FPS drops down to just 5 fps in areas such as Cyro, Wrothgar, MA, and a few other dungeons on occasion. Got very bad over the past few weeks.

It never used to happen, but does now...

And I highly doubt it's my PC as nothing has changed there and it used to run like a dream... Still running a nice fast Corsair SSD, AMD R290x, 16gb ram, 2500k overclocked to 4.5Ghz (barely hits 50% running ESO... ever).

So something has changed with the game to cause this basically

Have a friend who has sufferred this SO much she's basically had to quit he game as she's a PvP'er and it's made it totally unplayable.

Soleya · November 2015

I turned off Combat Analytics mod and my fps drops went away.

kenpachi480 · November 2015

I've experienced some FPS drops, especially in Orsinium itself or when I go near it,. it drops between 12/23, going away further from it sometimes seem to help

my FPS in a busy Cyrodiil campaign can even lower my FPS to below 10

I have lowered my settings from ultra to high,. but not much improvement even though I was able to run Ultra till Orsinium launched. so yeah a fix if its not from my end and that seems to be the case now, would be appreciated

zerosingularity · November 2015

Yeah last night I was running around in cyro, and it seems to be even worse there, as I had to re-log at least 5 different times to get my FPS under control. I wonder if the devs can try to imagine pvping at sub 10 FPS.

It is worth noting that the FPS drops only very rarely happen during high latency times. Therefore it is likely not tied to the data transfer between client and server.

I know that optimizations are being worked on to improve performance, but this is beyond that and is a complete and serious problem. Optimizations will NOT fix this issue at all. It almost feels prudent to review the code that deals with processing and rendering data, as there are likely accumulated glitches in there contributing to the fps drops and maybe even some latency issues.

Preyfar · November 2015

I think this image sums it up as best it can.

Core i7 5930K, 32GB of RAM and a GTX 960. Going up to a wall after about two hours of play, where no PVP is taking place, nor are there many other players around... and just staring at a wall gets me 41 FPS. I can reload, go back in, and have nothing but 60+ FPS constant.

Malmai · November 2015

Antibot system + Lightning patch destroyed the game

jircris11 · November 2015

when i kill some of my mods my FPS goes back up, the mods i have found troubling my game is FTC and minimap.

Flameheart · November 2015

My system:

-Asus Z97 Deluxe USB 3.1
-i7 4790K
-16 GB DDR3 RAM
-SSD Samsung Evo 1 TB
-2 x Nvidia Geforce Titan X SLI
-28'' Asus Display on native WQHD 2560 x 1440 (playing on almost Ultra HD Nvidia DSR though)
-100 Mbit/s fibre connection (100 Mbis/s download, 50 MBit/s upload, sitting 50 km from Frankfurt EU server, no packet loss, did several ping tests)

-> All effects to max, Nvidia DSR kicked in, newest Nvidia driver. I play with a custom scaled UI (I just do that remark because this feature was bugged for a while after IC and might be part of the issue). Of course I don't play the game in windowed mod, full screen all the way.

...and I have similiar issues...and yes, the issues started after the IC patch. It makes the game not unplayable though, but it is rather annoying.

You won't recognize the fps stuttering (fps spikes/drops) for a while after a fresh log in or relog (constant 60 fps, maybe smooth 50 fps in crowdy places like Deeshan during main play times), but it will get worse over time. You don't need super crowdy locations or Cyrodiil PvP, those places just fasten the effect. After a while only a /reloadUI might help for a short time. Addons might fasten the effect too, but you won't get rid of them by just deinstalling all addons, it just takes more time for the effect to kick in and might soften the peak somewhat.

In addition it's not just a simple fps stutter, it affects your ping display in addition when things get really worse.

In opposite to an above poster I realized an improvement after changing from native resolution (2560 x 1440) to Nvidia DSR (almost Ultra HD).

I monitor CPU and GPU load by sending the data to my G19 LCD via MSI Afterburner, CPU and GPU load isn't an issue. VRAM usage is below or around 2 GB, RAM usage might reach up to 8 GB (I guess the monitored value displays virtual RAM usage).

It feels like a memory leak sometimes, but sometimes I think it's a general performance issue, but there should be none, not with my machine. The stutter is no SLI micro stuttering, those effects look different.

The_Great_Maldini · November 2015

I also have FPS drops to 0/sec as well as occasional game crashes after a few minutes of playing in Wrothgar. It occurs after killing a monster or group. There is a 2 - 4 second game pause. It is made worse when I use multiple sorcerer AoEs and I end up killing several monsters. That is when the game sometimes crashes. I have LUA issues even when no ADDONS are being used. I also get a pause/FPS drop when I switch weapon bars.

@ZOS_GinaBruno any advice or help on this issue? I have playing on the same computer since BETA and have never had this issue before. It started occurring with the patch that fixed sorcerer particle effects and DoT timing of abilities.

Vatter · November 2015

Honestly, there is only one way to get this fixed and that is to stop playing ESO. The memory leaks have been around since beta. It's not going to get fixed. Sometimes you have to realize you have made a bad investment and simply cut your losses.

The_Great_Maldini · November 2015

It really does make the game unplayable when the game basically pauses after something dies to the point where you hope you don't die during that pause.

Something changed though two patches ago because I have never had this issue before.

Tinolyn · November 2015

My problem is microstutter and lag. It's not my ping, and it's not my latency (both are usually quite low). It isn't my hardware, either. I've done absolutely nothing to my hardware and I didn't used to have this problem, which popped up around the release of IC.

I see framerate drops, but I don't think they are what is causing the stutter. I notice the stutter in cities, like Wayrest or Rawl'kha or the Rift, during primetime. So I'm assuming it's because there's a bunch of people online trying to play.

I don't PVP, so I can't speak to Cyrodiil, and I don't have either of the DLCs. I'm just talking the base game. I never had the stutter before the release of IC, even in the aforementioned cities.

Though I should note I tend to crash a lot less from prior to IC. I'm not sure what changed in ESO, but not crashing is a plus. Thanks for that.

Anyway. I don't run addons. Server is PC NA. All drivers updated. System is:

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (SP1)
AMD 955 Black Edition @3.2GHz
8G Ram
Nvidia GTX 960 2GB
1 TB regular HDD

LaucianNailor · November 2015

On the Mac client here (10.11.1) and ESO has been and still is completely stable in adventure zones AD/DC/EP and Cyrodiil. I can play for 5+ hours without a problem!

Wrothgar is a completely different story. After about 30/60 minutes I start to loose textures, so seeing neon pink landscape creatures, mounts and some floor/ground......a crash always follows in about 10 minutes. Rinse and repeat after each restart.
Back to any other location however and hours of stable gameplay without any crash or texture issues is the result.

How the client handles memory or triggers for flushing memory appear to be very different with Wrothgar than elsewhere and I'd like to know why thats happened.

16GB memory (although this means nothing with the 32 bit client) and a 4GB Nvidia graphics card in my system, although I don't believe this has much of an impact due to flawless stability outside Wrothgar. Some comment from Chris Dillman the Mac programmer would be appreciated (although this seems as if its a wider issue than just Mac client).