Memory overload ESO using over 12,000 MB of RAM

Valdek · May 2020

I previously posted in the bugs forum and I was pointed in the direction of the support section. I tried repairing the game but that has not changed anything.

The issue is that, particularly recently, when I log in and begin playing, I get a sudden catastrophic drop in performance. I checked my task manager and discovered this:

It happens more often when I first enter Cyrodiil. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, I am forced to quit the game and restart to 'reset' the memory usage. Usually, the memory usage of ESO starts at 2000 MB and slowly creeps up to 4000+ if I stay in the same zone. My computer simply can't cope with a sudden ramp up to over 12,000 MB though. Does anyone know how I can prevent this?

Cathexis · May 2020

There is a known issue with the ShaderCache.Cooked you might try deleting it as a first look (if that file has a gigantic size it could be the issue). You are definitely having some sort of memory leak problem though, if that doesn't work I'll help you think of what will.

Valdek · May 2020

Thank you. I'll give that a shot. It was 27 MB - not sure if that's big or small for a shader cache!

MilkJugg24 · May 2020

@Valdek

My shader cache usually gets around that size, but there's no reason that should cause a 10+GB increase in RAM usage.

Have you tried disabling or updating any add-ons? If you repaired the game, and are still having this issue, I would suspect a broken add-on being the problem here.

Can you confirm that the ESO64.exe is the application using the 12GB of memory? You can check by expanding the drop-down or going the Details panel in Task Manager. We've had a couple of people run into issues caused by the bethesda_launcher consuming too much RAM for certain systems.

Valdek · May 2020

Interesting. If it could be addons, that might be it... some of them are no longer being updated for key addons like CMX and activity duration reminder.

The launcher is the 'Zenimax Online Studio Launcher' using 63mb in the screenshot.

Thank you!

MilkJugg24 · May 2020

@Valdek

Do you by chance use Minion to manage your addons, or do you manually update grab them from ESOUI?

I use Action Duration Reminder and Combat Metrics myself, as well as a few super-old add-ons, and they don't seem to harm anything.

If you don't already use this add-on management tool, and are interested in trying it out, check out the link here: https://minion.mmoui.com/

If set up correctly, you should see all of your add-ons that are already installed. It should also let you update them to the latest available version in ESOUI's website.There are other tools out there such as the Twitch app to manage add-ons, however, those do not pull directly from ESOUI, and are therefore significantly outdated and do not contain many of the useful add-ons.

Please let us know if you're still experiencing a memory leak once your add-ons are either updated or re-installed.

The_Camper · May 2020

have you tried using ISLC? might fix your problem to some extent

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1256

Valdek · May 2020

The only addons I have active are TTC, action duration reminder and dressing room. I've got 'Allow out of date add-ons' unchecked and these addons are all okay according to that.

Is one of these a likely culprit? Or is it something else?

MilkJugg24 · May 2020

@Valdek

I honestly doubt it at this point. That's such an incredible amount of RAM usage, I think the add-on would crash itself before getting that large. Does this continue to happen with *no* add-ons enabled? I haven't seen a memory leak this bad in a while. It's difficult to tell what the cause would be without some kind of Lua logs or something.

I use all of those add-ons, and more, and have zero issues. Are you managing them using the https://minion.mmoui.com/? Out-of-date add-ons should be perfectly fine, as long as you run an add-on like NoThankYou to hide all of the error messages. Make sure that you also have all the libraries installed. If any of the add-ons in the list are red, click the drop-down arrow to see what dependencies (libraries) you need to install for them to function properly.

I have one other troubleshooting suggestion. You can try starting your computer with only diagnostic services enabled and re-test to see if there's possibly an issue with other programs on your PC.

Do do this on Windows 10, here are some steps:

Press the Windows Key + R.
Type msconfig and press enter.
In the General tab, look at, and remember what the radio button is currently set to, you'll have to change this back when you're done.
Select the Diagnostic startup radio button, and click apply.
Click ok, then restart your PC.

After this, your PC should start up with only the basic services needed to run. To revert this, just repeat the steps and select whatever startup option was previously selected, then restart your PC. You can play the game while this setting is enabled to see if the issue persists. If you don't run into any issues, you can repeat the steps again, doing Selective startup, and slowly re-enable stuff you need that you're sure won't cause any issues. Sorry that I don't have an exact solution for this. There's never really an easy answer for this kind of issue.

Valdek · May 2020

Thank you @MilkJugg24 , I'll have a go at trying your suggestions. Fingers crossed!