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Changing accounts drastically alters load times.
Hi, thanks for opening my thread.
My and my girlfriend both play ESO together, our PC's are very near to each other as well.
I have noticed since we started playing together though, that her load times are almost twice as fast as mine.
Yet, she is playing on my 4 year old gaming laptop, while I am on my cutting edge PC.
I feel like I have tried everything from wiping clean and starting fresh, to copying her ESO folders from both the my documents folder and program files. Nothing had any effect.
Then I tried something a little different.
I logged her account on to my PC, and my account on to her laptop.
Suddenly the load times were identical.
Everywhere we loaded, our computers would start, and end at the exact same times.
Sometimes my PC was a little faster.
To confirm my results, I switched back.
With my account back on my PC, and her account back on her laptop, suddenly my PC was loading almost twice as slow again...
So, my question is this.
Where does ESO store files on a PC other than the "Zenimax Online" under the Program Files (x86) folder, and the "Elder Scrolls Online" folder in My Documents?
I have wiped out both of those folders and started fresh (no mods) and this is exactly what I see. My account loads slower on my PC, while hers continues to load just fine on the same PC.
Thank you for any assistance you can offer.
My and my girlfriend both play ESO together, our PC's are very near to each other as well.
I have noticed since we started playing together though, that her load times are almost twice as fast as mine.
Yet, she is playing on my 4 year old gaming laptop, while I am on my cutting edge PC.
I feel like I have tried everything from wiping clean and starting fresh, to copying her ESO folders from both the my documents folder and program files. Nothing had any effect.
Then I tried something a little different.
I logged her account on to my PC, and my account on to her laptop.
Suddenly the load times were identical.
Everywhere we loaded, our computers would start, and end at the exact same times.
Sometimes my PC was a little faster.
To confirm my results, I switched back.
With my account back on my PC, and her account back on her laptop, suddenly my PC was loading almost twice as slow again...
So, my question is this.
Where does ESO store files on a PC other than the "Zenimax Online" under the Program Files (x86) folder, and the "Elder Scrolls Online" folder in My Documents?
I have wiped out both of those folders and started fresh (no mods) and this is exactly what I see. My account loads slower on my PC, while hers continues to load just fine on the same PC.
Thank you for any assistance you can offer.
1
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Update:
I started timing the actual load screens, and I found something odd.
It actually turns out that both our accounts load slow on my PC.
But on her laptop, only mine is loading slow, hers loads just fine.
Her account on her Laptop loads more than twice as fast as my account on her Laptop.
and both our accounts on my PC load just as slow as my account on her Laptop.
My PC;
My account: 16-18 seconds.
Her account: 16-18 seconds.
Her Laptop;
My account: 16-18 seconds.
Her account: 6-9 seconds.Edited by Dantonian_Rarstiana on February 6, 2016 5:38PM1 -
Asmodean✭✭✭Are you only timing the initial loading screen upon changing account?. The game is probably reloading the shader cache in the docs folder.
Saying that - I'd need way more info to even begin diagnosing anything. To begin with the hardware, and OS, main component drivers, for each system.
There are many factors to take into account for loading times. (they obvious one being the main system drive) is it a mechanical HDD, or an SSD.
If it's not caching-related I'd be surprized, tbh.
Edited by Asmodean on February 6, 2016 7:44PM0 -
Elf_Boy✭✭✭Many laptops have SSD based storage now.** Asus Crosshair VI Hero, Ryzen 1800x, 64GB DDR4 @ 3000, GTX 1080 ti, 4K Samsung 3d Display m.2 Sata 3 Boot Drive, m.2 x4 nvme Game Drive **0 -
Are you only timing the initial loading screen upon changing account?. The game is probably reloading the shader cache in the docs folder.
Saying that - I'd need way more info to even begin diagnosing anything. To begin with the hardware, and OS, main component drivers, for each system.
There are many factors to take into account for loading times. (they obvious one being the main system drive) is it a mechanical HDD, or an SSD.
If it's not caching-related I'd be surprized, tbh.
Thanks for your response.
I was not timing the initial load screen into the game.
The 16 seconds is loading from The Rift, into the public dungeon The Lions Den.
The 18 seconds were from The Lions Den back into The Rift.
I did each transition twice to try to bypass any kind of change in caching between measurements.
My hardware is as follows.
PC;
CPU: i7 4970k
GPU: GTX 980 ti (2)
Storage: Tried game from both Intel SSD DC S3500, and a generic Western Digital 1TB drive.
OS: Windows 10
Laptop, Samsung Series 7 Gamer;
CPU: i7 3610QM
GPU: GTX 675M (1)
Storage: Some generic HDD I don't know. It is not using the RAID functionality. They are seen as two seperate HDDs right now.
OS: Windows 10
I was hoping you could clarify some more on the caching the game does. Where is it located? Is anything configurable? Do any of the settings get saved to the server? What knobs can I turn on to try and get things back to normal?
Thanks0 -
Many laptops have SSD based storage now.
It does have a small SSD used for caching, but it caused many, many issues when I first bought the laptop. It is completely turned off.
Even if that was the case, it does not explain why my account loaded slower on the same laptop than her account was loading quickly on.Edited by Dantonian_Rarstiana on February 6, 2016 8:17PM0 -
Pepper8Jack✭✭✭Dantonian_Rarstiana wrote: »Hi, thanks for opening my thread.
My and my girlfriend both play ESO together, our PC's are very near to each other as well.
I have noticed since we started playing together though, that her load times are almost twice as fast as mine.
Yet, she is playing on my 4 year old gaming laptop, while I am on my cutting edge PC.
I feel like I have tried everything from wiping clean and starting fresh, to copying her ESO folders from both the my documents folder and program files. Nothing had any effect.
Then I tried something a little different.
I logged her account on to my PC, and my account on to her laptop.
Suddenly the load times were identical.
Everywhere we loaded, our computers would start, and end at the exact same times.
Sometimes my PC was a little faster.
To confirm my results, I switched back.
With my account back on my PC, and her account back on her laptop, suddenly my PC was loading almost twice as slow again...
So, my question is this.
Where does ESO store files on a PC other than the "Zenimax Online" under the Program Files (x86) folder, and the "Elder Scrolls Online" folder in My Documents?
I have wiped out both of those folders and started fresh (no mods) and this is exactly what I see. My account loads slower on my PC, while hers continues to load just fine on the same PC.
Thank you for any assistance you can offer.
This may not be related to your pc. I'm on console, and a buddy of mine asked me to log in as him and take care of his research/riding training while he's out of town. In doing so for the past few weeks I've noticed the exact same thing, his loads are significantly quicker than mine despite being on the same console and everything.
Not that I can say anything for sure, but I recall that long load screen bug that hit with IC was related to the number of completed quests you had on that specific character. So perhaps were seeing something similar here. I know I've put in considerably more time into this game than my friend has, and I do have 1 more character than he does.Edited by Pepper8Jack on February 6, 2016 8:23PM0 -
Asmodean✭✭✭Hmm that is strange. One possibility might be that one account may have more info tied to it, than the other (for IO to, and from the Zen servers). If there is a way to establish if this is intended behaviour, or not would be good. If it's not you'd probably be better off reporting this using the in-game help tool, as a potential bug.
In so far as the cashing; there's not much control over it. If you open up your usersettings file in your \Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live... directory.
Use ctrl+f to search for "Cache", and you'll see some of the caching-related options. But so far as I'm aware most of them don't really 'work' for all intensive purposes. They're probably intended to be left on. But you could use them for testing.
Other than that - the GFX driver, and OS would handle the rest. So they're not really in your control. The OS would cache to memory, and the page file, etc. And the GPU would cache to vram, and compiled shaders to the temp storage on your drive.
If I think of anything I'll post it, I guess.
Edited by Asmodean on February 6, 2016 8:37PM0 -
Pepper8Jack wrote: »
This may not be related to your pc. I'm on console, and a buddy of mine asked me to log in as him and take care of his research/riding training while he's out of town. In doing so for the past few weeks I've noticed the exact same thing, his loads are significantly quicker than mine despite being on the same console and everything.
Not that I can say anything for sure, but I recall that long load screen bug that hit with IC was related to the number of completed quests you had on that specific character. So perhaps were seeing something similar here. I know I've put in considerably more time into this game than my friend has, and I do have 1 more character than he does.
I was thinking that it might be something along these lines. I have played ESO off and on since launch. She just started, and this is her first character.
But that doesn't explain why her load times are also long on my PC.0 -
Hmm that is strange. One possibility might be that one account may have more info tied to it, than the other (for IO to, and from the Zen servers). If there is a way to establish if this is intended behaviour, or not would be good. If it's not you'd probably be better off reporting this using the in-game help tool, as a potential bug.
In so far as the cashing; there's not much control over it. If you open up your usersettings file in your \Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live... directory.
Use ctrl+f to search for "Cache", and you'll see some of the caching-related options. But so far as I'm aware most of them don't really 'work' for all intensive purposes. They're probably intended to be left on. But you could use them for testing.
Other than that - the GFX driver, and OS would handle the rest. So they're not really in your control. The OS would cache to memory, and the page file, etc. And the GPU would cache to vram, and compiled shaders to the temp storage on your drive.
If I think of anything I'll post it, I guess.
Thanks again.
I will play around with these settings, see if I can get anything to happen, for better or for worse.0 -
If this helps at all. I took a hard look at my resource monitor while transitioning between zones.
The oddest thing, is my entire PC basically goes idle while loading.
The cpu spikes all the cores to about 20-40% for a split second twice during the transition.
But all the rest of the time, they sit at 0-6%.
Memory is changed by a few MB, bust mostly sits idle.
SSD loads at most 100 kb of data.
obviously GPU usage drops to 0%.
Even network usage sits around 1 kb/s...
It's like my PC is just waiting, for no reason.0 -
Uploaded a video showing exactly whats going on with my PC during load screens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQzXxzYipLg 0 -
Elf_Boy✭✭✭How much ram does each box have?
Will ESO launch in a safe boot environment? Does this affect anything?
I get what you have said about switching machines and still seeing the delta in load times, still should eliminate variables.
** Asus Crosshair VI Hero, Ryzen 1800x, 64GB DDR4 @ 3000, GTX 1080 ti, 4K Samsung 3d Display m.2 Sata 3 Boot Drive, m.2 x4 nvme Game Drive **0 -
How much ram does each box have?
Will ESO launch in a safe boot environment? Does this affect anything?
I get what you have said about switching machines and still seeing the delta in load times, still should eliminate variables.
Both systems have 16 gigs of ram. I don't know if/how to launch ESO in a safe mode, and currently ESO only has a 32 bit client, so it can only utilize a maximum of 4 gigs. Which even that is a bit overkill as the client isn't even using 3 gigs during my tests.0 -
Elf_Boy✭✭✭Dantonian_Rarstiana wrote: »How much ram does each box have?
Will ESO launch in a safe boot environment? Does this affect anything?
I get what you have said about switching machines and still seeing the delta in load times, still should eliminate variables.
Both systems have 16 gigs of ram. I don't know if/how to launch ESO in a safe mode, and currently ESO only has a 32 bit client, so it can only utilize a maximum of 4 gigs. Which even that is a bit overkill as the client isn't even using 3 gigs during my tests.
Even with the x32 limitation more ram is relevant.
Allowing windows, drivers, other apps to not share ram with ESO helps.
Windows disk caching helps.
With 24 GB of ram I always get much better load times the second time I visit a zone in the same night.
Do both systems have the same win version and have disk caching enabled?** Asus Crosshair VI Hero, Ryzen 1800x, 64GB DDR4 @ 3000, GTX 1080 ti, 4K Samsung 3d Display m.2 Sata 3 Boot Drive, m.2 x4 nvme Game Drive **0