Multi-core Performance Update, Improvement or Deterioration?

Karivaa · June 2018

How is Cyrodiil after the expansion?

Gythral · June 2018

Getting worse patch on patch
not better

profundidob16_ESO · June 2018

W0lf_z13 wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

W0lf_z13 wrote: »

ive been getting quite a bit of VERY short freezes where i just stop moving for a second ... also random quick load screens that just flash the load screen image
....
running...
i7 4790k
Maximus Hero VII
16gb ram
gtx 970

close the game completely down, then delete ( or rename) the usersettings.txt file and start the game again

oh it happens on a regular basis ... even after ive had the computer fully off for 14 hours

I have the feeling you may have misunderstood. The point was not to shut down the game and restart it in order to fix it but rather about having the game create new fresh default settings file by deleting the existing usersettings file. The game must be closed while doing so because else the file is in use and the existing running settings will overwrite again at the end.

Have you tried this ?

W0lf_z13 · June 2018

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

W0lf_z13 wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

W0lf_z13 wrote: »

ive been getting quite a bit of VERY short freezes where i just stop moving for a second ... also random quick load screens that just flash the load screen image
....
running...
i7 4790k
Maximus Hero VII
16gb ram
gtx 970

close the game completely down, then delete ( or rename) the usersettings.txt file and start the game again

oh it happens on a regular basis ... even after ive had the computer fully off for 14 hours

I have the feeling you may have misunderstood. The point was not to shut down the game and restart it in order to fix it but rather about having the game create new fresh default settings file by deleting the existing usersettings file. The game must be closed while doing so because else the file is in use and the existing running settings will overwrite again at the end.

Have you tried this ?

AH yeah .... i missunderstood you... I'll try that tonight when i get home from work

zsban · June 2018

@ZOS_AlexTardif @ZOS_GinaBruno

Maybe it's just me but since PC v4.0.8 patch the game performance feels much worse when there are particle effects on the screen. (fights with abilities going on, or just people spamming healing springs etc. in crowded public areas)

Instead of having less FPS spikes, I actually have MORE FPS spikes now.

mooslacker · June 2018

Got about 30 more fps than pre-summerset, coupled with my hardware upgrade, but am disconnecting randomly at least once per session. Sometimes while intracting with a chest or gathering node, sometimes totally randomly while running or riding around.

Ethoir · June 2018

The hitching and stuttering in Rawl'kha is still there, but its severity now varies depending on which "trip point" I am at. I am considering tweaking my usersettings file to see what I can do to limit the worker thread load hand-off that seems to cause these.

Doctordarkspawn · June 2018

Honestly i keep geting less after every patch.

danno8 · June 2018

Before 6/4/2018 patch I could reliably cause the stuttering by exiting the Tower in Arteum and head south towards the way shrine, where inevitably there would be a dozen or so players all hanging around.

Today, after the patch I tried that short path over and over and could not get the game to stutter like before. So this area is an improvement to be sure.

Octopuss · June 2018

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Octopuss wrote: »

I've just logged in and it doesn't appear that anything changed. I get humongous system lag during character loading (this was gone on PTS), and game is stuttering like crazy too.

close the game completely down, then delete ( or rename) the usersettings.txt file and start the game again

just like the other people before it sounds like you still have some old setting in there that is not adapted correctly. Starting with a clean slate now after patch will cut it out

Don't start with this nonsense. I did that After Summerset was released already, and it made zero difference.
Why can't people simply admit ZOS f*ed up?

zyk · June 2018

Octopuss wrote: »

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Octopuss wrote: »

I've just logged in and it doesn't appear that anything changed. I get humongous system lag during character loading (this was gone on PTS), and game is stuttering like crazy too.

close the game completely down, then delete ( or rename) the usersettings.txt file and start the game again

just like the other people before it sounds like you still have some old setting in there that is not adapted correctly. Starting with a clean slate now after patch will cut it out

Don't start with this nonsense. I did that After Summerset was released already, and it made zero difference.
Why can't people simply admit ZOS f*ed up?

It's not nonsense. It won't help everyone, but it will help some who have sub-optimal settings for different reasons.

The fact almost all of us have slightly different hardware and software configurations, operate in different rl environments (temps, airflow, etc) and each of us have different sensitivities to stutter and frame times means that no single solution will work for everyone.

I think the biggest issue isn't a particular bug. I think a large factors are the fact that the game is extremely busy and ZOS infrastructure is being pushed in ways we can only guess at, and the fact that more global art assets have been added. Furthermore, the combination of increased art assets and more players means a greater range of outfits to manage, load, process and clear than ever before.

The players demanded The Elder Sims Online, and performance when it's busy will be the cost. I don't like it, but meh.

Something else that may not work for everyone, but helped me recently:

I like to think I'm pretty good at staying on top of addon updates, but I missed one that hadn't been updated since November. It had an old library that was adding to my stutter, so finally updating it improved performance.

On the topic of addons, just because an addon is recognized as updated by the client doesn't mean that its authors or maintainers have ensured the addon performs well. I recommend that everyone reduce the number of addons they use to the greatest degree possible. In the past mini-map addons have been an offender. I have found that using the games default target and resource frames (health, stam, mag, etc) beneficial.

KoultouraS · June 2018

I understand that an update tailored to work fine on the rigs of any random pc user with random specs, would probably
be a major achievement and thus almost impossible.
But FFS, most of the people complaining here have monster rigs or very good ones.
A handfull of them have even upgraded just for playing games like ESO inthe luxury of having
settings set to ultra/high.
Most of the problems come out of the users with specs high enough to run far more demanding games in ultra, yet
here its the low end pc users that tend to report no problem.

So what is your take on it?
Why should the high end pc have more problems than the low end ones.
To my eyes there is no whatsoever logic explanation as to why this thing is happening.

Oh, and btw, i dont understand why a i7 6700/7700 cpu with an Nvidia 10XX card and a proper mobo is that
much of a "rare" combo that your testers were not offered the chance to test on, so to foresee the issues
and not to release this update in such an unacceptable state...

zyk · June 2018

KoultouraS wrote: »

So what is your take on it?
Why should the high end pc have more problems than the low end ones.
To my eyes there is no whatsoever logic explanation as to why this thing is happening.

Very likely they don't. But the user you're talking about has higher expectations.

Further, there are very likely people with high-end PCs who are perfectly content with their performance. Those players are not likely to go on the forums to read performance issue threads.

Another issue is perception. Studies have shown most people are okay with 30 fps gaming. Most players have low sensitivity cameras and are therefore less impacted by stutter. A player with a high sensitivity to frame times and with a high sensitivity camera (mouse speed) will notice performance issues more.

But the bottom line is that ZOS has chosen to prioritize appearance and customization over performance. Perhaps further optimizations and the eventual move to DX12 will help, but I don't have my fingers crossed. I don't think we'll ever see the kind of performance we saw earlier in the games life when performance had a higher priority than appearance and customization. Recall how flat many of the orignal armors were. That was by design to ensure the best possible combat performance.

I want to make it clear: I am not apologizing for ZOS. I think it sucks. But there is a cost to constantly adding global art assets like styles, costumes, mounts, pets, etc and features like Outfits. I wish they'd optimize the game for hardcore gamers who want stutter-free gaming and consistently low frame times and have twitchy high sensitivity cameras and high dpi mice. But instead, it's optimized for players who loved modding Skyrim and now love customizing their characters in ESO.

KoultouraS · June 2018

Isn't the guy who spend 700-800 euros on GPU and half of that on CPU entitled to demand better services?

On his end he did excactly what the market demanded.
Purchase better eqquipment , expecting better performance.

Isn't a game that wants to succed doomed to deliver the demanded services first and foremost?
Many may have bought Summerset , but if any update brings issues like these, I can't see how the
userbase will flourish during the next expansion.

Let alone the fact that the performance was good , or at least sufferable pre-patch.
I mean , come on , this thing has an end somewhere, its all a matter of prioritize as you have said.
They just don't prioritize the fact of solving performance issues.
Meanwhile in PvP where the issues are more obvious, I still wait for a skill to be released ... :P
You may have a lag of 2-5 secs depending on various factors (time/server traffic etc)
between pressing a skill and watch (or better hope ) it gets released.

As for the multitude of combos of PC's i disagree.
If you see most of the guys here complaining have i7 (of the lattest gens)
This IS the very freaking group of users allong with the AMD equivalent multicore cpus this updated
was presumably targeting to, via taking advantage of the multithreading.
If they are unsatisfied , the update had no reason to be released,
and if it was released without being tested on the most comon multicore cpus they were aiming for
then again why releasing it?

zyk · June 2018

KoultouraS wrote: »

Isn't the guy who spend 700-800 euros on GPU and half of that on CPU entitled to demand better services?

You're entitled to demand anything you want. I demand omnipotence every day, but god has yet to comply.

MLGProPlayer · June 2018

The stuttering is gone for me.

I've been jewellery farming at dolmens the past few days, and I would always stutter several times (long stutters of at least 1s) as I run from the wayshrine to the dolmen on my mount. No stuttering as of today.

phairdon · June 2018

Made my return during the weekend and experienced massive FPS drops in Auridon. Enough to make my game freeze at times. Riding around the Gold Coast today, my FPS dropped from 80 to 31. Not sure the FPS drops are anything new. The micro freezes are though, outside of Cyrodiil.

SpearDusk · June 2018

I've been getting slight stutter-like jitters after Monday's update.

Post

thestud2012 · June 2018

zyk wrote: »

KoultouraS wrote: »

So what is your take on it?
Why should the high end pc have more problems than the low end ones.
To my eyes there is no whatsoever logic explanation as to why this thing is happening.

Very likely they don't. But the user you're talking about has higher expectations.

Further, there are very likely people with high-end PCs who are perfectly content with their performance. Those players are not likely to go on the forums to read performance issue threads.

Another issue is perception. Studies have shown most people are okay with 30 fps gaming. Most players have low sensitivity cameras and are therefore less impacted by stutter. A player with a high sensitivity to frame times and with a high sensitivity camera (mouse speed) will notice performance issues more.

But the bottom line is that ZOS has chosen to prioritize appearance and customization over performance. Perhaps further optimizations and the eventual move to DX12 will help, but I don't have my fingers crossed. I don't think we'll ever see the kind of performance we saw earlier in the games life when performance had a higher priority than appearance and customization. Recall how flat many of the orignal armors were. That was by design to ensure the best possible combat performance.

I want to make it clear: I am not apologizing for ZOS. I think it sucks. But there is a cost to constantly adding global art assets like styles, costumes, mounts, pets, etc and features like Outfits. I wish they'd optimize the game for hardcore gamers who want stutter-free gaming and consistently low frame times and have twitchy high sensitivity cameras and high dpi mice. But instead, it's optimized for players who loved modding Skyrim and now love customizing their characters in ESO.

I'm one of the highish spec guys. I'm fine with medium to high graphics, but that's not the problem. What's frustrating is the stutters. Reliability is much more important than ultra graphics. It's especially frustrating that it happens in PVP. I could be on a 10 kill streak, then out of nowhere I'm hit with a 1-2 second freeze. I've had to put aside reactive characters until this is fixed. Luckily duels and BG have been reliable. I don't think moving more to the server side was wise. Can definitely tell it's hurt scalability even more.

Lunerdog · June 2018

Stuttering and hitching has gone for me too, visited areas of the game where I always got it before todays patch and no problems at all.

Even visited a Dolmen choo choo to grab some jewellery to decon and that was smooth going too

Krainor1974 · June 2018

The details and shading is amazing

Ankael07 · June 2018

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

Zoltan_117 · June 2018

ZOS_AlexTardif wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the information! The stutter many of you are experiencing now is new with this patch. With the info and videos you have supplied, we've been able to track down the sources of these and are currently working on fixes that we'll get out as soon as possible. We've also discovered that if you have Game Mode turned on (Windows 10 users), it can significantly negatively impact the performance of the game with the Summerset patch, so it's worth double-checking if you have that enabled.

Additionally, when customer support recommends disabling your addons to help with framerate issues, that's not a blind recommendation. In practice through performance analysis, we've seen a large number of popular addons that can impact framerate. Some are a constant impact, averaging 2-4ms of CPU processing time per frame, but we've seen as high as 8-10ms. Some affect it during combat, and some decrease framerate over time until you reload your UI or your client completely. Addons are not multithreaded, and their impact stacks cumulatively. This is why we recommend disabling them when you have performance issues, though we understand many prefer to make the utility vs performance trade-off.

We may also recommend that you delete (or change the name of) your UserSettings file and let the game generate a new for you, and this can genuinely be helpful. Sometimes that file can find ways to get in a bad state after a patch. We also often see people making modifications to that file and then recommending those same modifications to other people. While well-intended, this can often lead to problems because no two people are likely to have the same PC hardware, so if you have modified your UserSettings file, we definitely recommend letting the game make a new one for you. We only recommend changing those settings if you have a solid understanding of how it will impact your machine.

If you've done all of that, and you're still not seeing any improvements, it may well be that your CPU is not your limiting factor with ESO, either because you have an older graphics card, or because your graphics settings are high enough that the GPU time becomes the bigger factor. You can try changing those settings and see how it looks and feels for you. Shadow Quality and Reflection Quality tend to be the heaviest factors. It may also be that your particular hardware combination doesn't see as many improvements as others because these changes won't affect everyone uniformly (as evidenced by the wide range of reports about the changes).

We're still working on performance improvements in a variety of areas of the game, in the meantime we appreciate all this feedback and information. And thank you all for your patience while we work to resolve these hitches/micro-freezes.

Can you please also help with the crashes I am getting in the same spots in Alinor?

MLGProPlayer · June 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

You need to set your user settings file to "read only" after you make changes to it.

zyk · June 2018

thestud2012 wrote: »

I'm one of the highish spec guys. I'm fine with medium to high graphics, but that's not the problem. What's frustrating is the stutters. Reliability is much more important than ultra graphics. It's especially frustrating that it happens in PVP. I could be on a 10 kill streak, then out of nowhere I'm hit with a 1-2 second freeze. I've had to put aside reactive characters until this is fixed. Luckily duels and BG have been reliable. I don't think moving more to the server side was wise. Can definitely tell it's hurt scalability even more.

Cyrodiil does and has had server-side processing lag for years, but the increased stutter recently, IMO, is a direct result of the incredible influx of art assets. Especially since outfits were introduced because they result in a far greater variety of styles.

I've found even loading the assets for a mount that your client doesn't have in memory and cause perceivable stutter in PVE zones. The game has to be incredibly aggressive in cycling them in and out of memory because of the sheer variety that exist now.

This is what happens when The Sims marries an MMO.

ZOS probably does its performance profiling based on 12 player instances, so Cyrodiil is, as usual, a casualty ZOS development priorities.

It's really depressing, but I've basically given up. ZOS will barely say a word about AvA anymore. The best thing that could happen for AvA would be for ZOS to spin it off as its own product so its gameplay could actually be optimized. I bet the server tech would be fine if the game was designed around its limitations.

Seri · June 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

At a guess, it's probably more likely that 'MaxCoresToUse.4' is the setting name so you only want to change the number between the quotes.

Valkysas154 · June 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

Leave it as MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" i asked about this change in the settings and got a this reply

That was us. Previously we hard-capped at 6 cores because of some internal limitations, but now we try to use all of them (-1 means "use as much as there is available").

erlewine · June 2018

Ankael07 wrote: »

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

It sounds like you're saying you changed the .4 at the end of MaxCoresToUse.4? Dont do that.. just change the part in quotes

SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "x"

Gprime31 · June 2018

Drummerx04 wrote: »

I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet. The performance in cyrodiil almost ALWAYS improves dramatically after a content release because half the normal pvp population goes to experience the new content. Once they get bored, they pile back into pvp and performance suffers until the next content release.

Nailed it ^

exiars10 · June 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Ankael07 wrote: »

I have an 8 core PC but when I try to change MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" into .5 ''5'' it reverts back to .4 ''-1'' when I log into the game. Anyone know what am I doing wrong?

You need to set your user settings file to "read only" after you make changes to it.

Clearly fake news.