I had a issue with the "GEForce experience" software that would not let me run some games at 1980 x 1080.

I removed the "GEForce experience" Software and just installed the latest drivers and it fix the issue.

From my experience recently I would suggest looking for a replacement card because mine did the same thing up until a couple of weeks ago when it kicked the bucket.

I had the same problem when I started to use my older computer as a backup to play my other account. I has an older and slower CPU in it.

The problem is with older slower NVidia CPUs. I found articles online that gave recommendations of changes to make that eliminated the black screens. I don't have those changes available but will try and find them. I have to set my usersettings.txt file up to read only after one of the changes or the game would change it back to the setting it was at.

Here is one of the changes I did to resolve the problem and you can google for other things people did to resolve it as not everyone is helped by the same changes:


-NVIDIA USERS- Here is the Fix (at least for me)
check out: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/61626/please-read-first-known-technical-issues-pc

"#5. Adjust your video card to run the game at High Performance.

Nvidia Video Card.
Open the Nvidia control panel. This can be done usually by clicking the appropriate icon in the bottom right of the computer on the Task Bar. You can also right-click directly on your desktop and you should see Nvidia Control Panel in the list.
Under 3D settings, select the Manage 3D Settings. The Manage 3D Settings window displays on the right.
Click the Program Settings tab at the top in the Window on the right.
Your first step is to select a program to customize. Click the drop down and select eso.exe.
Your second step shows a list of settings for the program. We need to look for the Feature Power Management Mode and change the option on the right to Prefer maximum performance.
At the bottom select Apply and close out of the Nvidia Control Panel.
Now try running the game as administrator"

This one seems to slove the random occuring "Black Screen Problem". Well at least for me. Hope this fixes it for you guys as well!


Here is another fix on these forums:




Well I found something that seems to be working for now. Not sure if this is going to be a fix all for this issues but I can play without the black screen now.

Try editing this file C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\UserSettings.txt . Change the line from "SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D11"" to "SET GraphicsDriver.7 "D3D9""

I also changed the following:

Make the following change to the Usersettings.txt file

Go to your "My Documents/The Elder Scrolls Online" folder and open the folder in there called "Live."
Check to see if there is a file called "UserSettings.txt" in there.
Locate the line "SET RequestedNumThreads "X" change the X from whatever number it may be to 0.

I had to make the txt file read only as every time I logged in ESO changed the setting back to D3D11. Here is a link to the thread that helped me and the user Lovreone who made the suggestions that seems to work: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/509812#Comment_509812

I talked in great length to top level folks at ESO about this issue a few days ago and told them about this "fix" that seems to work. I also explained that I have done a ton of research and testing on this and found that many users out on the net having this issue all have one thing in common, NVIDIA cards. Hopefully they will look into this further. I would suggest sending in a ticket to support with a link to this thread as I did to help keep this issue on the burner so they find out why we are being forced to roll back to DX9 instead of using DX11.
Edited by Seravi on April 7, 2014 5:36AM


If this doesn't fix your issue search and you will find other things but these resolve my problem. I searched on this and found multiple people that found solutions: eso screen goes black