FPS drops after U33

jjjozo · May 2022

Also think about 1 thing.
Every single performance thread on this forum ends up non-answered by devs and with players arguing players about their GPU's and CPU's and internet connection and usersettings.cfg.
Every single thread is later closed for inactivity or for aggressive comments or for thread duplicity.

So stop speculating already, nobody will help you, it's simple reality.

Gederic · May 2022

I've sadly become aware of this issue having built a new rig that should be able to chew this game up and spit it back out. i7-12700k, RTX 3070 ti and a very frequent stutter in ESO. I don't hit 100% CPU usage but can see it jump to the 60-70% range on the stutters. Setting the core usage down to 2 seems to be something of a bandaid and reduces the stutter a little but at the end of the day its really just unacceptable and disappointing that in order to play ESO on this new PC I have to contend with a stutter.

Good thing I have my old rig completely intact with an i7-6700k and its 4 cores that seems to not be bothered in the slightest.

dadester · June 2022

[snip] It's still a thing that hasn't been addressed

[edited for thread bumping]

Gederic · June 2022

My fiance now has this occurring on her setup as well. Its absolutely absurd you can watch the CPU usage spike to an insane amount, to the point it was force crashing the game with no error codes or messages.

Pyvos · June 2022

Is this still an issue in the latest patch? I cancelled my ESO+ in March and stopped playing in protest until it gets fixed.

@ZOS_GinaBruno any update from the team on this?

Fabi95 · June 2022

ixthUA wrote: »

So they updated game client to use all cores to increase loading times

This was not mentioned in any changelog though, which raises the suspicion of a bug regression. Plus, the current game engine behavior isn't making sense. It is frequently causing 100% CPU usage spikes. Then it causes stuttering in populated areas. Where telling the game engine to use less cores (through the "MaxCoresToUse.4" variable) has shown to be the only proper workaround. But the main thing is really, before update 33 this was never a problem. It would help if a Zenimax developer would acknowledge this thread, as only they are able to properly investigate this new regression.

ixthUA wrote: »

I read entire thread and haven't seen a single powerful CPU user complain.

Because in my observation, in the gaming industry, performance regressions tend to be compensated through other people's hardware and power bills. If the hardware allows it and people don't measure anything or don't have sensitive computer fans, then all seems as usual - even when it isn't. It's ironically also why these days, simple polygon graphics games tend to need hardware that can easily run former demanding games such as Crysis. Measuring performance impact, power usage and the difference of visual quality when comparing such games can be then quite jaw dropping.

Long story though, we still need ZOS to acknowledge this thread. As only ZOS can fix this and do the proper investigation what went wrong.

Edit: This performance bug is still present in update 34

Vonkarolinas · June 2022

It really does not seem like a bug in the game. If it was, it should affect all players, it does not. There are just as many who state that their games run perfectly fine, myself included. Then there are those who state their games are crashing with low fps.

Clearly, it is not an issue with ZOS code, as again, it would affect all not just some. Look for other answers, ZOS can't help you. ZOS did not create the problem.

Fabi95 · June 2022

Vonkarolinas wrote: »

If it was, it should affect all players, it does not.

It does literally affect all players, as CPU usage is consistently much higher across the people I asked this about (and I'm affected as well). However the difference is that on upper-high end processors, the sheer hardware power can compensate the FPS instabilities. But just because hardware can compensate, it does not mean there is no issue.

You can observe the current engine bug yourself when you use a tool such as Process Monitor or even just Windows Task Manager. When you log into a character that spawns in the middle of a zone, the CPU usage spiking for a longer period of time. Encountering other characters also spikes the CPU usage, which is then leading to frequent FPS drops. This was never the case before update 33.

Vonkarolinas wrote: »

Clearly, it is not an issue with ZOS code, as again, it would affect all not just some.

As mentioned previously, extremely powerful hardware can compensate enough to not make players notice this issue. The power bill will for sure though. And it does not mean that the issue then vanished. It's simply masked through raw horse power.

Also, when setting "MaxCoresToUse.4" to a lower value, the initial loading CPU spike becomes shorter - this doesn't make sense if the game would need more cores to do something. How would you explain this?

KairanD · June 2022

In addition to modifying UserSettings.txt and changing "MaxCoresToUse.4" to 2, I also tried turning off "Multithreaded rendering" in the game's options.

Combining these changes, the performance is insanely better. Drops drastically reduce and the game is playable again, although not as good as it was before this issue arose.

Honestly, it's absurd to see people saying that this behavior (having much more stable performance, in the game, using only two - or maybe one, it seems - processor cores) is normal. Please folks... It is extremely obvious that there is a problem with the game.

Dottzgaming · June 2022

[snip] Still having this issue

[edited for thread bumping]

mklilith · June 2022

Still having this issue - it is so bad that many times the game crashes on startup

Quagile · June 2022

Not experiencing any drops on my end from the new update, but I didn't have many issues before.

Red_Feather · June 2022

I am popping in to see if the game is still messed up. Seems so. What is going on at this company. 100% cpu causing stuttering and heating on some old and even new cpus is not normal. Seriously why has every single person in this topic been ignored.

Pyvos · June 2022

How the [snip] does ZOS keep ignoring this thread?

Come on ZOS, do something to fix this.

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

tomstock · June 2022

Pyvos wrote: »

How the [snip] does ZOS keep ignoring this thread?

Come on ZOS, do something to fix this.

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

I'm guessing that they are trying to determine cause to come up with a proper response.

I'm also encountering this. My FPS is dropping from 45 FPS to 5 FPS after about 20 minutes of game play. I've updated drivers, re-installed my operating system, disabled all addons, everything. Something in this latest patch is causing FPS issues.

tomstock · June 2022

Vonkarolinas wrote: »

It really does not seem like a bug in the game. If it was, it should affect all players, it does not. There are just as many who state that their games run perfectly fine, myself included. Then there are those who state their games are crashing with low fps.

Clearly, it is not an issue with ZOS code, as again, it would affect all not just some. Look for other answers, ZOS can't help you. ZOS did not create the problem.

This is a misunderstanding of how coding works. In order to maximize capabilities across all devices that users may have, their can be optimizations for certain graphics cards, processors speeds, memory, etc. This can affect loading of assets, using graphics card specific APIs, caching, etc. The operating system differences can also cause issues. Coding software is not a simple thing where all users are treated equally. It would be nice, but that isn't the case.

Parasaurolophus · June 2022

This issue has been fixed for me in this update. I didn't change anything in the ini file. No more FPS drop when loading a lot of players and my CPU is no longer running at 100%. The game works for me as before before update 33. I hope it stays that way. But this silence from ZoS...

Fabi95 · June 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

This issue has been fixed for me in this update. I didn't change anything in the ini file.

Sadly I can't confirm this nor for a friend who has the same issue. Update 34 changed nothing for us.

Aldoss · June 2022

Had this same issue since U33. Game ran perfectly with 0 frame drops up until the day U33 dropped.

I'm running an AMD 2700x with an Nvidia 3060.

My wife is running an AMD 3500 with an Nvidia 1050Ti and doesn't seem to have this issue at all.

When we're in Cyro, she has to tell me what's happening because my frames drop below 10fps sometimes. Switching the settings to 2 or 4 has improved things, but they're still frustratingly choppy for someone who still has "newer" hardware.

tomstock · June 2022

I didn't realize this thread was for update 33, update 34 is when I started experiencing issues.

emilyhyoyeon · June 2022

I'm also having this problem since U33.

Doesn't help that I play on a laptop from 2017 but I did the thing where I change the number to 4 or whatever and it has helped. Not how it was in the past but when my an increase to 35 frames in overland from 22 feels SOOOOOOOO much better. I won't get headaches anymore for now.

dadester · June 2022

[snip] I have not seen a permanent solution

[edited for thread bumping]

emilyhyoyeon · June 2022

I'm still getting horrible fps fluctuations. Super unstable

tomfant · June 2022

Jup, another patch without tackling this issue. Seems, nobody cares at ZOS...

Cuddlypuff · June 2022

[snip]

Just curious. What does it actually take to get an acknowledgement from the developers about what appears to be a fairly prevalent issue? Has anybody tried raising a ticket and if so, can you paste the responses here so we can get an idea of whether or not a fix is incoming.

I mean people have already posted their system specs and CPU load graphs. Developers have access to old game builds. Just spin up U32 on a similar spec machine (mostly 8 core Ryzen CPUs but a lot of others seem affected too) and compare performance to U33/34.

Please don't settle for the 2 core "fix" and just live with the issue. It does not work for big Cyrodiil fights. It does not work if you run a lot of addons. Both cases create so much load that they appear to completely saturate the cores and cause frequent crashing.

[edited for thread bumping]

ZOS_Kevin · June 2022

Hi All. After chatting with the team we do have some information here.

So the team did make some changes based on feedback here for framerate stability and implemented those in U34. However, our teams are reviewing some of the more recent feedback and will work toward more improvements. No eta on those yet, but they have been noted and in progress.

Eclipse318 · June 2022

Just chiming in that this started at Update 33 for me too. I can't go 20 feet inside a city without running face first into a load screen. I've had to quit/relog because the game was unusably slow. I also can't afford a $3000 gaming tower so "buy a better computer" is not a reasonable solution, before someone here tries to suggest that. I do Premiere Pro video editing with it just fine, but I can't get between two points in any city without smashing into several load screens. Supremely frustrating and ruins the immersion.

Red_Feather · June 2022

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. After chatting with the team we do have some information here.

So the team did make some changes based on feedback here for framerate stability and implemented those in U34. However, our teams are reviewing some of the more recent feedback and will work toward more improvements. No eta on those yet, but they have been noted and in progress.

Thank you for communicating with us. After 3 months I was more and more certain that the stuttering was to be left like this, and I honestly had no idea if waiting was a lost cause or not. It is a relief to hear something at least.
Some of us have uninstalled over the past months, but at least it could be comforting to know that the stuttering might be gone someday if any of us do reinstall. It means a lot to know that. Seriously, thank you for posting.

Snamyap · June 2022

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. After chatting with the team we do have some information here.

So the team did make some changes based on feedback here for framerate stability and implemented those in U34. However, our teams are reviewing some of the more recent feedback and will work toward more improvements. No eta on those yet, but they have been noted and in progress.

I had some issues with U33 but it has become much, much worse since U34. Very unhappy customer here.

Edit: just disabled multithreaded rendering and I could approach a volcanic vent in progress without almost locking up. Average fps is lower though.

Re-edit: may have just been a fluke. Doesn't really seem t matter much.

WoppaBoem · June 2022

Snamyap wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. After chatting with the team we do have some information here.

So the team did make some changes based on feedback here for framerate stability and implemented those in U34. However, our teams are reviewing some of the more recent feedback and will work toward more improvements. No eta on those yet, but they have been noted and in progress.

I had some issues with U33 but it has become much, much worse since U34. Very unhappy customer here.

Yes the frame rate is appealing. Just before High Pile of *** dropped I was so impressed on the game looks and FPS in performance mode on Xbox. The High pile of *** drops and the game look worse and the FPS dropped dramatically.