The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
Maintenance for the week of April 22:
• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 22, 4:00AM EDT (08:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)

Low FPS and Customer Support Issues

gcdarko
gcdarko
Hi everyone,

I have been experiencing low FPS in game whilst playing on my iMac, has anyone else had this trouble?

I have between 14-30 FPS at pretty much all times throughout Tamriel.

My machine is a 3.4 GHz, Intel Core i7, 8GB 13333 MHz DDR3 with a AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB Graphics.

I have contacted Customer Support at least 4 times but have been having real issues receiving help. At first I was impressed with a speedy response that told me to check that I have been playing the game in the correct resolution. I was. Then I tried to reply to their support message and my mail was returned each time.

I tried again and was told to reply to their email with a system report. When I tried to do this my mail was also returned also.

My enquiries to them since have been completely ignored it seems.

Anyone know a way to solve this issue?

Thanks guys,

G
  • Moonraker
    Moonraker
    ✭✭✭✭
    gcdarko wrote: »
    Hi everyone,

    I have been experiencing low FPS in game whilst playing on my iMac, has anyone else had this trouble?

    I have between 14-30 FPS at pretty much all times throughout Tamriel.

    My machine is a 3.4 GHz, Intel Core i7, 8GB 13333 MHz DDR3 with a AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB Graphics.

    I have contacted Customer Support at least 4 times but have been having real issues receiving help. At first I was impressed with a speedy response that told me to check that I have been playing the game in the correct resolution. I was. Then I tried to reply to their support message and my mail was returned each time.

    I tried again and was told to reply to their email with a system report. When I tried to do this my mail was also returned also.

    My enquiries to them since have been completely ignored it seems.

    Anyone know a way to solve this issue?

    Thanks guys,

    G
    Hi @gcdarko, there is an issue from reading customer services section where their email got onto the SBL spam list so emails were getting blocked. Think it's sorted now.
    Your card should be fine for ESO.

    The first thing is to ensure Vsync is OFF as it will cap your FPS as it's double buffered so capped to display refresh rate. For 60Hz it would be 30 >15 etc. So, unless you have a consistent 60 FPS+ it should be off. It also uses additional memory which can impact the memory issue.

    The biggest hit for framerates is Shadow Quality which is best set to Medium or lower to improve performance. Also, View Distance will have quite an impact and should be left at the default for your card or possibly lowered via the slider. Texture Quality to Medium will help if you experience memory crashes.

    Other settings will increase FPS a bit when switched off so try toggling them to get the best balance.

    The game will chose a default for you but it is a best guess so it's always worth tweaking settings down to get the performance v visuals balance that suits you.

    Your framerate will inevitably drop in crowded areas like towns which literally hundreds of other players on grid as it loads in textures etc. What tends to happen as you ride through the town you are constantly loading textures, objects etc and the FPS drops. Once you stop and they all load it returns to a more normal rate. Once outside towns and PvP, your will generally have higher FPS.

    Hard to say what FPS you should expect but outside cities something like 45-55. In towns more like 25-35.

    Try these and if it is still low then post back.
    Edited by Moonraker on April 26, 2014 1:13PM
  • gcdarko
    gcdarko
    Hi @Moonraker‌,

    I really appreciate that you took the time to pass on all that useful info.

    I followed your advice and amended my graphics settings as suggested. I ran into a quiet area of the zone I was in and waited for the area to load. My FPS did go up to around 25 which is the highest it's been for a while, but I am still disappointed that I cannot have a smoother experience with my graphics settings on higher as I feel I have quite a beefy machine.

    But maybe I am wrong?

    G
  • Moonraker
    Moonraker
    ✭✭✭✭
    gcdarko wrote: »
    Hi @Moonraker‌,

    I really appreciate that you took the time to pass on all that useful info.

    I followed your advice and amended my graphics settings as suggested. I ran into a quiet area of the zone I was in and waited for the area to load. My FPS did go up to around 25 which is the highest it's been for a while, but I am still disappointed that I cannot have a smoother experience with my graphics settings on higher as I feel I have quite a beefy machine.

    But maybe I am wrong?

    G
    Happy to share info ;)

    So much tends to depend on numbers of players around. It really impacts performance even when tweaked etc. Even outside town it's just really busy still at peak times like weekends. During week days and late a night it gets better more often.

    So, I have a top end iMac 27 inch (late 2013) with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB which I can play at Ultra-High (default, with Shadow Quality set to Medium and default View Distance at 62) and get FPS in town around 35-50FPS and 50-60FPS otherwise.

    I still turn down the Shadow Quality from Ultra and also never have Vsync on with a few of the other options off as I prefer not to have them on and help a bit in FPS. When playing on PTS so low population server, it's noticeably higher and smoother so I expect that over time, as players and launch crowd thins out, it will improve also.

    I would think you should get a more than 25 FPS static position without others around. Like, I said, if you are riding around or running it's lower becuase the client is constantly loading new objects/ textures etc. Once you stop racing about it's all loaded and higher. In dungeons I have to up the Shadow Quality as the FPS goes to 70-80 and I start to get tearing.

    Do you get much difference in Windowed or Fullscreen and First Person and Third Person?

    It may be some other issue. Hard to say. The AMD drivers in Apple OS X updates
    have been rather behind Nvidia I think but with new Mac Pro they were bumped a bit so it could be a difference I can't test directly.
    Edited by Moonraker on April 26, 2014 3:26PM
  • LavaDrop
    LavaDrop
    I have a very similar configuration: iMac, i5, AMD 6970 1 Gb VRAM, 20 Gb system RAM.
    In my own tests, I never got anything above 25 fps. The only way to achieve better performance is either lowering Subsampling to Medium on native resolution or keeping Subsampling on High but lowering your resolution to 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. Don't be affraid of lowering the resolution, it does not affect the UI/Text, unlike WoW where all text becomes unreadable.
    Try experimenting with medium textures; since the latest patch IMO texture quality stopped degrading performance.
    Vsync and AA off are both a must as is having more than 4 Gb system RAM. Also, I get much better frame rates fullscreen, windowed and maximized eat as much as 20 fps. Must be a driver issue.
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