Stuttering Issue Following Upgrade to Win 10 / Update 11

IcyDeadPeople · August 2016

Have experienced low frame rate in Cyrodiil at times on my low spec PC since around the end of 2014. Following Update 11, however, performance improved a bit.

Then I upgraded to Windows 10 and had to reinstall the game with default UserSettings, etc. After this I began experiencing a frequent and severe stuttering issue. No idea what's causing this, but it is rather extreme and makes the game unplayable compared to the experience with Windows 7. I can't tell whether this is due to some Windows 10 process, some audio issue, SSD problem, the loss of my old UserSettings.txt file, or some other reason - any suggestions to fix this?

In the past, with Win7, I only experienced stuttering or freezing on occasion when multiple enemy players would attack me at once. Now it sometimes occurs every few seconds, regardless of whether I'm in combat or not. Reloadui and restarting the client doesn't fix it.

Seemed to stop occurring for a while after removing certain add ons and adjusting the following lines in UserSettings.txt from default (but frequent stuttering returns after a while):

SET MaxCoresToUse "4"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "0"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "0"

complete usersettings.txt:

SET GamepadPreferredEnabled "0"
SET MouseRawInput "1"
SET MouseSensitivityFirstPerson "0.50000000"
SET MouseSensitivityThirdPerson "1.00000000"
SET MouseSmoothing "0"
SET InvertMouseWheel "1"
SET InvertMouseY "1"
SET InvertMouseX "1"
SET DistantFoliageEnabled "1"
SET PFX_SUPPRESS_DISTANCE_v2 "35.00000000"
SET PFX_GLOBAL_MAXIMUM "768"
SET MULTI_GPU_CHECK "0"
SET CachedRLREnabled "0"
SET CachedReflectionResolution "0"
SET CachedShadowFiltering "0"
SET ScreenshotFormat.2 "PNG"
SET PregameScreenAdjustEnabled "0"
SET PregameGammaCheckEnabled "0"
SET HardwareCheckEnabled.3 "0"
SET SUB_SAMPLING "1"
SET REFLECTION_QUALITY_v3 "0"
SET PARTICLE_DENSITY "0"
SET HIGH_RESOLUTION_SHADOWS "0"
SET SHADOWS "0"
SET GAMMA_ADJUSTMENT "99"
SET VIEW_DISTANCE "0.40000001"
SET GPUSmoothingFrames "1"
SET MIP_LOAD_SKIP_LEVELS "4"
SET RAIN_WETNESS "0"
SET LENS_FLARE "0"
SET GOD_RAYS_v2 "0"
SET ANTI_ALIASING_v2 "0"
SET AMBIENT_OCCLUSION "0"
SET COLOR_GRADING_v1 "0"
SET BLOOM "0"
SET DEPTH_OF_FIELD "0"
SET TONE_MAPPING "1"
SET COLOR_CORRECTION "1"
SET SOFT_ALPHA "0"
SET DISTORTION "0"
SET CHARACTER_LIGHTING "0"
SET DIFFUSE_2_MAPS "0"
SET DETAIL_MAPS "0"
SET NORMAL_MAPS "0"
SET SPECULAR_MAPS "0"
SET CLUTTER_2D "0"
SET SIMPLE_SHADERS "1"
SET WATER_FOAM "0"
SET VSYNC_INTERVAL "0"
SET VSYNC "0"
SET MAX_ANISOTROPY "0"
SET PreferMaximizedWindow "0"
SET PreferExclusiveFullscreen "0"
SET FULLSCREEN_v5 "2"
SET FullscreenHeight "720"
SET FullscreenWidth "1280"
SET WindowedHeight "768"
SET WindowedWidth "1024"
SET ShowPetsAtCharacterSelect.2 "1"
SET TrialAccountType3SeenVersion "0"
SET TrialAccountType2SeenVersion "0"
SET TrialAccountType1SeenVersion "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPetDoTEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPetDamageEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingPointGainsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingStatusEffectsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingHoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingHealingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingDoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingDamageEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextIncomingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetHoTEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetHealingEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetDoTEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingPetDamageEnabled "0"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingStatusEffectsEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingHoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingHealingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingDoTEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingDamageEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextOutgoingEnabled "1"
SET ScrollingCombatTextEnabled "1"
SET SiegeCameraChoice "0"
SET IsServerSelected "0"
SET SelectedServer "0"
SET OverscanHeightAdjustment "0"
SET OverscanWidthAdjustment "0"
SET OverscanYOffset "0"
SET OverscanXOffset "0"
SET CharacterSelectForceAllCharacterPreloads "0"
SET PlayerStandInsMaxPerFrame "8"
SET PlayerStandInsEnabled.2 "1"
SET FOVChangesAllowed "1"
SET AgreedToPEGI "1"
SET LuaMemoryLimitMB "93"
SET GamepadSensitivityFirstPerson.2 "0.72000003"
SET GamepadSensitivityThirdPerson.2 "0.85000002"
SET GamepadInvertX "0"
SET GamepadInvertY "0"
SET GamepadVibrationEnabled "1"
SET SOUND_ENABLED "1"
SET FOOTSTEPS_VOLUME "50.00000000"
SET FOOTSTEPS_ENABLED "1"
SET SPEAKER_SETUP "0"
SET VOICE_CHAT_VOLUME "65.00000000"
SET BACKGROUND_AUDIO "0"
SET VO_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET VO_ENABLED "1"
SET UI_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET UI_ENABLED "1"
SET AMBIENT_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET AMBIENT_ENABLED "1"
SET SFX_VOLUME "70.00000000"
SET SFX_ENABLED "1"
SET MUSIC_VOLUME "40.00000000"
SET MUSIC_ENABLED "1"
SET AUDIO_VOLUME "81.00000000"
SET AUDIO_ENABLED "1"
SET TooltipFilter "-1"
SET TooltipNumOptions "2"
SET Language.2 "en"
SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"
SET PatchDataPath "game:/GameData/"
SET CacheDataPath "machine:/Cache/"
SET ViewedAddOnEULAVersion "5"
SET AcceptedAddOnEULAVersion "5"
SET AcceptedCodeOfConductVersion "1"
SET AcceptedPrivacyPolicyVersion "2"
SET AcceptedTOSVersion "2"
SET AcceptedEULAVersion "3"
SET DirectionalDamageIndictorVisibleInThirdPerson "0"
SET CameraFramingTransitionEnabled "1"
SET SkipPregameVideos "0"
SET HasPlayedPregameVideo "1"
SET AssassinationKillCamera "1"
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01680000"
SET ParticlesEnabled "1"
SET MaxCoresToUse "4"
SET RequestedNumJobThreads "0"
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads "0"
SET FreeUnusedGrannyFileSections.2 "0"
SET IsTrustedMachine "0"
SET RememberAccountName "0"
SET AccountName ""
SET LastRealm "NA Megaserver"
SET CustomUIScale "1.00000000"
SET UseCustomUIScale.2 "0"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapEnabled "0"
SET RollDodgeDoubleTapTimeWindow.2 "185"
SET ClampGroundTargetEnabled "1"
SET MonsterTellsEnabled "1"
SET CameraZoomDistancesSynced "1"
SET SiegeCameraZoomDistance "6.50000000"
SET WeaponsOutCameraZoomDistance "9.00000000"
SET WeaponsSheathedCameraZoomDistance "9.00000000"
SET MaxNetworkWriteBuffer "10485760"
SET MaxNetworkReadBuffer "10485760"

IcyDeadPeople · September 2016

I stumbled on the fix for this. It has something to do with the way the UI is being scaled for the active ESO window.

At some point in the process of attempting to roll back to older AMD driver, I completely uninstalled the graphics driver. At that point, when I launched the game, everything including the UI was stretched out.

I usually play on a lower than native resolution (1152x648), but normally in ESO, the UI gets adjusted to my correct display resolution of 1080p. This time, it was not adjusted and looked stretched, with slightly wrong aspect ratio.

When the game launched in this condition, my average frame rate in pvp battles shot way up from 15fps to 60fps, and the stuttering was completely gone. I was able to update the AMD graphics driver to 15.201, and it still seemed to retain this stretched out setting with incredibly high framerate.

However, after restarting PC today, it was not possible to get the stretched out setting again. The UI kept scaling to fit the screen, and I experienced the same stuttering and low frame rate.

Anyone know how to get this stretched image mode again? Do I need to keep uninstalling the AMD graphics driver? I suspect it might be forcing the game to use true fullscreen mode instead of windowed mode.

Totalitarian · September 2016

My transition from Windows 7 to 10 was flawless

I changed almost nothing with my computer after the upgrade.

You shouldn't be having this problem if you updated through Microsoft when it was free.

Sharee · September 2016

Make sure your game is running in fullscreen mode (and not fullscreen-windowed)

Synfaer · September 2016

You shouldn't be having this problem if you updated through Microsoft when it was free.

Nothing from Microsoft is ever free.....