How to increase the ESO FPS cap. Guide

mrpaxman · March 2019

To change the games FPS cap up to 240 FPS

Open the eso live usersettings.txt file

Find the line that shows
SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01000000"

Change the number to the following:
120 fps cap = "0.00833333"
144 fps cap = "0.00694444"
240 fps cap = "0.00411111"

Setting the number below 0.00411111 automatically changes it back to that number. An example being 0.00000001

If you are worried about editing this file. some options are:
-Make a copy of the settings file and keep it in another place like the desktop. You can just place that file back and have all your settings restored the way they were
-Delete the file and a new one will be created once the game is started. All settings will be set back to default if done this way

If you are unsure of what is best for you:
-If you are using a g-sync or free sync monitor and have a graphics card that supports the type you have. Ideally you want to use V-sync setting turned on in game. That sets the games FPS to match that of your monitors refresh rate for every frame. It eliminates screen tearing entirely and looks really great and smooth. When a game can not maintain the monitors refresh rate it reduces the number by 50% and makes a matching frame for every 2nd frame the monitor produces. It keeps dropping another 50% for each time the FPS in game is not maintained. Still making the picture look very smooth and no tearing at all. The in game v-sync setting should be turned off for everyone else not using these configurations removing the type of FPS cap that it is.
-For regular screens. Having fps about 20 to 30 frames higher then the monitor's refresh rate is about optimal since graphics card frames and monitor frames are not lined up at the same time. Having the FPS the same as the monitors refresh rate is not ideal since the tearing of showing part of the next frame is repeatedly in the same location on the screen. It becomes very noticeable and annoying when it's set like that. Increasing FPS even higher will very slightly reduce tearing a tiny bit more by showing part of 2 frames much closer together when the screen displays that as 1 frame
-Other games usually have no cap. Reaching a FPS cap means the graphics card doesn't need to give 98%+ at that point. Temperatures, load, power consumption and even fan noises may increase. Similar to how majority of other games are by default.
-Do not worry if you are still not reaching 98% GPU load/utilisation in eso. This game requires a fairly muscular CPU to give enough info to graphics cards. Even when paired with some older graphics cards that are not sold any more
-This may also help with those experiencing frame stuttering if they suffer from it
-With all my testing. I can not see any kind of game issue by doing this. Tons of add ons and triple screen. No game issues at all. No changes to FPS on screen below the cap. Disclaimer, I can not guarantee it will work for 100% of people smoothly only because of things like If a graphics card is not working as it should by operating properly under full load. It may be to much for the graphics card and possibly cause a game or PC crash/restart. In that case the graphics card would do that in 99% of other games on the market. Or if you never reach the games default cap then you will not gain anything or have anything different happening.

If you are unsure about anything else. Just ask

Enjoy c:

Keewo · March 2019

Show me your Fps in a Trial like vcr+1,2 or 3 or vHOF. After that you can Edit your Post and be realistic.

mrpaxman · March 2019

Keewo wrote: »

Show me your Fps in a Trial like vcr+1,2 or 3 or vHOF. After that you can Edit your Post and be realistic.

If you would like to know what i get with my hardware in that situation at max settings and triple screen then it's about 15 FPS

i7 6700
Vega 64

Absolutely terrible. The game bottlenecks horribly even on that type of CPU. Even when i had it paired with an old 290x it still bottlenecks.

If someone has a 100hz monitor then 100 FPS would not be ideal. If they have a 144hz then they can use this method to unlock higher FPS.

An i7 8800 and a GTX 1060 gets 100 FPS outside of trials and drops to about 70 FPS only inside of trials. Better hardware goes higher. Many players can achieve 100 FPS and may like to go higher.

100% of the time in those trials is not "realistic" for most players also.

Mudcrabber · March 2019

I went the opposite direction, lowering the cap to 60 fps so I could turn off vsync.

My laptop has hybrid graphics and I use borderless fullscreen window mode which seems to provide its own vsync, so I don't get tearing even with it off in ESO. Though my reason for the changes was to workaround an occasional crash I was getting last year.

Shadowshire · March 2019

@mrpaxman

(1) What is the FPS cap for SET MinFrameTime.2 "0.01000000" ?

(2) What is the name of the application that produces the output shown in the image? If we can obtain a copy, then please let us know where to get it.

The display is a Samsung Series 4 LED TV 24" which accepts HDMI2/DVI input from the ViewMax NVidia GeForce GT730 graphics card (PCIe 2.0). The game client video output configuration is Windowed (Full Screen). That enables me to use the Windows key to access the task bar, then run and use other applications, such as the Firefox Quantum browser and Discord or TeamSpeak 3, and return to TESO.

As far as I can determine, there is no available documentation as to whether V-Sync should be enabled.

Currently it is enabled and set to the display's native refresh rate of 60 MHz. I don't recall whether I have ever disabled it, but, IIRC, V-Sync is disabled by default. The output resolution is set to the display's "native resolution" of 1366 x 768. I have never seen any of the "tearing" which you described.

If the in-game FPS meter is credible, then sometimes the FPS will be as high as 60 while there is no player input. When I press a key to move the character or the keybind for an ability, or when I either move the mouse or press a mouse button, the FPS quickly drops to 30. While my character is in a group with -- or simply in the vicinity of -- 4 or more other player characters, the FPS often varies from 20 to 30. In my experience, it has seldom been as low as 15 (at which the displayed output is horribly slow) -- if FPS drops below 15, then the game client exits.

FPS also appears to be affected by Network Latency. However, Network Latency is another issue entirely. ....

mrpaxman · March 2019

Hi @Shadowshire

1) Correct. "0.01000000" is default. It = 100 FPS

2) The application is called "FPS monitor". It has a free version and optional paid version as well. The in game FPS has always been fairly accurate during all of my own testing. Not even 3 FPS off ever with how often it refreshes the number. The program can be downloaded from https://fpsmon.com/en/?

For that monitor you have. Based on the info showing on the Samsung website. It is not a g-sync (Nvidea only) or free sync (AMD only) monitor. I am fairly sure both companies do not have compatibility with each other still to this day. Most people do not have a G-sync or free sync monitor. They usually cost a fair bit more then regular monitors if they have either of those features. Ideally you will want to turn "off" the in game V-sync to allow the FPS to go above 60 FPS if it is capping at that point for you. Which is very likely. The info on the website is a bit limited. It seems as though the refresh rate is 100hz/FPS for that monitor. Since you have the setting turned on. It is highly likely that your FPS is dropping down in stages of 60 FPS, 30 FPS and 15 FPS just like how you mention. Seeing other numbers like 20 could be moments of it switching between the different refresh rates. With the V-sync setting turned off you should see FPS range from every number between 1 and 100 with no problems by default if the hardware can go that high. It will probably even remove the crashes you mention when it goes below 15 FPS also i reckon. Half of 15 FPS is likely not supported. Overall you should have better FPS with V-sync turned off

Tearing can vary greatly. Some people notice it a lot and others not at all. Hardware will largely play a factor. Your resolution is not massive and should have very little tearing present. Your screen size will also reduce it a lot compared to a much larger TV. Only if tearing is seen and is annoying. Then no need to worry about that at all

Latency is another issue yeah, haha. FPS should not be directly affected by latency. 1 way to test connection between your own PC to the eso servers is in this link
https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/30903/~/how-do-i-do-a-pathping-and-tracert-to-the-servers-to-test-my-connection

Hope this helps

Shadowshire · March 2019

@mrpaxman

Thank-you for your reply and the answers to the two questions which I asked at the start of my most recent post.

In all of my prior experience, the usual recomendation has been to enable vertical synchronization to make the FPS rate the same as the "native" refresh rate of the display monitor. The context, though, was that monitors had cathode-ray tubes (as televisions did) which processed analog signals. Today ordinarily we use LCD or LED electronic devices which display pixels, each of which is a formatted digital bit-string. If a player is using an analog display monitor, then enabling V-Sync would be appropriate.

So, as you recommended, I re-configured Settings to turn V-sync off, and left the anti-aliasing feature off (as it has been).

In my observations thus far, the FPS has varied from as low as 15 to as high as 38 (and has had every value between, too). Even while I am not entering any input, and nothing is happening onscreen, the FPS has not been as high as 60 (unless it has, but I didn't see it). So, at least with regard to the hardware that I use, the default FPS cap of 100 FPS appears irrelevant.

As before, I have not seen any "tearing" (yet). The overall quality -- quite good, actually -- of the display has remained the same.

FPS is most important while in combat with other player characters, with NPCs, and with MoBs. It is also important when a player character competes with another player character(s) while pharming resources, for example, collecting Herbs. The higher the FPS, the more accurately the displayed digital content portrays the current, real-time state of the game.

But that accuracy is affected by Network Latency as much or more than it is by the FPS rate, because the Internet is an asynchronous packet-based network. A higher FPS just more rapidly displays the most recent (but inherently outdated) content which the computer has received from the game host.

Evidently the TESO design, like most multi-player online games which require an Internet connection, ignores that asynchronicity. Apparently, they are fundamentally designed to run as if the Internet were a synchronous network instead. In my experience, apparently some game software, such as World of Warcraft (by Blizzard Entertainment) is designed to take into account the fact that Internet is an asynchronous network.

Even so, the inherent effects of asynchronous communication can be mitigated, but cannot be eliminated. The most effective remedy is to decrease the Network Latency as much as possible.

Some of the first two-player games required a synchronous peer-to-peer connection between the respective computers of the players via a telephone network, or a LAN. Others required a synchronous connection to a game host "server" via a LAN. I suppose that today we could use a telephone, or satellite, private network to serve the same purpose. Other than that, any digital traffic carried by a VPN via the Internet remains asynchronous.