biounit112 wrote: »
I've done all the work arounds available on the internet, but I won't go as so far to change CPU values.
I encourage you to try this fix anyway, just to provide ZOS with more proof it temporarily fixes the issue. It's a one-line change to a config file, and you won't hurt your computer by doing it. You can even un-do it right after testing if you're nervous about it.
But I agree, none of us should have to be touching config files or trying out 100 different experiments to work around things like this. But I'm willing to do so for now, because I wanna be able to enjoy the Jester's Festival, and I'm too impatient to wait for the real fix.
One of my guildmembers has no problems on a 6 core cpu, it is exactly the same as before the patch.
Someone else pointed out that there seem to be problems with 8 cores rather than 6 from what he had seen as well.
Thank you for this hint, I think we've solved the issue.
Asking for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_AlexTardif @ZOS_Bill
My hardware: Ryzen 7 1700 / 32 Gb RAM / NVidia GTX 1070 / Archlinux
I've played with UserSettings.txt and variable : SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "x"
By default, I had 16 because my CPU is Ryzen 7 1700 (8 cores + HT), it's been years I have this settings, no issue until update 33.
Since update 33, when loading characters, my CPU reach 100% load for three minutes, a real pain, and I have stuttering in cities because of huge fps drop.
I've made some test changing this variable with two characters, one full of addons (character 1), one with few addons (character 2) and I've timed the loading time for each profile.
Results :
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "16" :
- Character 1 : 177 seconds (CPU Load 100%)
- Character 2 : 39 seconds (CPU Load 100%)
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "8" :
- Character 1 : 66 seconds
- Character 2 : 22 seconds
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "6" :
- Character 1 : 55 seconds
- Character 2 : 15 seconds
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "4" :
- Character 1 : 52 seconds
- Character 2 : 13 seconds
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "2" :
- Character 1 : 51 seconds
- Character 2 : 12 seconds
SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "1" :
- Character 1 : 51 seconds
- Character 2 : 12 seconds
Now I'm using SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "2", and it works like before update 33, usual loading time and no more stuttering.
Update 33 broke something with multithreading on 8 cores CPU and more.
Sorry to say, but community is doing your job Zos, I hope now you will fix the issue instead of saying the problem is on our side.
MageCatF4F wrote: »Where is ZOS on this? The world wonders.
The game forgets its cooked shadercache, and tries to build shaders live regardless. This is why the CPU usage is so high, and why framerates stutter so much in towns. Only ZOS can fix this, this is not something we players can do.
For context: There is a file called "Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\ShaderCache.cooked" in your user documents folder. This file is recreated on each update. Which is why you see maximum CPU usage for a good while on each patch. This is used to avoid having to recreate the shaders each time, which is a highly CPU intensive task.
Since update 33, apparently the game ignores the shader cache, hence why the performance has gotten worse. If you ever edited UserSettings.txt and set the "CachedRLREnabled" value to 0, you would have gotten the same problematic performance. The cache exists for a reason, and we can only wait until ZOS investigates and fixes this.
TL;DR: Don't tinker with weird settings, it cannot fix the real issue. It's band-aid at best. We need to wait for ZOS to fix this.
Red_Feather wrote: »Holy cow, how did you figure that out. If that's true I hope it can get fixed.
@Fabi95 Very interesting, how did you find out about this? Also limiting CoresToUse seems to fix the stuttering, how does that fit in? If what you're saying is true, wouldn't decreasing CoresToUse worsen the performance even more, because the game has less CPU power to build the shaders?
Not true / only true on your CPU / on reasonably modern CPUs. I run on a very old quad core with no hyperthreading. Never mind why. It's sufficient in many PvE and PvP scenarios. FPS can be 60 (at which I have it capped). Only in trials and large PvP battles will it sometimes dip to unplayable values, e.g. below 20. ESO frequently pegs all cores of my CPU at 100% and not just in the above-mentioned cases.Due to two things. ESO only ever uses 100% CPU when it's compiling shaders. In my experience there is not a single scenario where the game ever uses 100% CPU outside of that. After each patch, the shaders are recreated, which is where the 100% CPU usage occurs. When there is no updates, this never happens.
This may or may not be true. I'm assuming this reflects what you observe on a contemporary CPU. Mine is > 10 years old and frequently pegged at 100% on all cores. At first I thought ZOS' multi-threading optimisations were OK. In recent patches (even before Ascending Tide) however, the game has stuttered a lot and started dropping audio. I subesquently changed the number of cores to use from 4 to 3. I only have 4 cores to go around, no hyperthreading. The game runs much smoother now. Audio issues are also improved, if not completely fixed. FPS may be lower, but are more consistent.As with the core limiting, my guess is that ESO still runs best with fewer, but more powerful cores. The current multi-threaded rendering implementation does, from what I have seen based on FPS and core usage, use two cores instead of one. So it's not muli-threaded in the sense of using all cores, but multithreaded by using 2 instead of 1 for the main renderer thread. ZOS had done other optimizations in the past where even more cores can be used. But typically when lots of stuff happens on the screen, the main bottleneck is often still the main renderer.
Yes, I can understand that. So far the only side effect I noticed from reducing MaxCoreToUse.4 is that addons run a lot slower, e.g. using DressingRoom to change equip and skills takes a lot longer. I've set it to 2, but Sheens testing indicates that the performance with 4 or 6 isn't much worse, so I might as well use one of these values, maybe the addons will run better then.Personally I have not adjusted the core limit setting yet, but I will test it in an hour and report back here. I'm generally not too keen on adjusting hidden settings, as that often indicates that these are considered "off-limits " - no one tests the hidden settings for production, but if you change these, you could potentially introduce new issues (in the worst case). For the sake of science I will see how the performance looks like after adjusting the core setting though.
At first I thought ZOS' multi-threading optimisations were OK. In recent patches (even before Ascending Tide) however, the game has stuttered a lot and started dropping audio. I subesquently changed the number of cores to use from 4 to 3. I only have 4 cores to go around, no hyperthreading. The game runs much smoother now. Audio issues are also improved, if not completely fixed. FPS may be lower, but are more consistent.
In theory Windows should prioritise things such that audio and important operating system tasks take priority, even when the CPU is pegged on all cores. In practice this does not appear to be the case. I can only guess the issues were due to the OS not granting itself and/or video/audio drivers enough CPU resources when the game was using all 4 cores at full tilt.
Yes, I can understand that. So far the only side effect I noticed from reducing MaxCoreToUse.4 is that addons run a lot slower, e.g. using DressingRoom to change equip and skills takes a lot longer. I've set it to 2, but Sheens testing indicates that the performance with 4 or 6 isn't much worse, so I might as well use one of these values, maybe the addons will run better then.
@ZOS_Kevin
Summoning MVP of these forums.
TheGreatFloki wrote: »SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "4"
This setting helps with stability but my cpu is getting hotter and using half of the cores makes no sense at all...