I didn't read every reply, but wondering if you've ruled out add-ons? Action Duaration Reminder is one that I have isolated as causing massive performance issues for me. 20-40 fps loss and a weird stuttering effect. There may be others as well.

Other than that, I've not seen any problems with the game itself. I run with all graphic settings maxed for many hours at a time and never seen fps drop under 150 or so.

Yesterday, for the first time in years, my FPS dropped significantly from a steady 60-59 to low 40's. And it keeps dropping within this same range. PC EU. This hadn't happened to me for a long long time, literally years. The issue happened in stormhaven and rivenspire, which I am completing 100%(done with stormhaven now).

Specs: Windows 10, RTX 2080 TI, no add-ons, i9 9900k.
The only thing which changed for me was that windows 10 installed a new small update yesterday(KB5022282), which I assume is causing this major issue with ESO. Not sure why. To try and fix it I installed the latest GPU drivers, and re-capped my program and background program FPS to 60(they already were) in the Nvidia settings. This did not fix the issue. So my guess is this most recent windows 10 update clashes with ESO somehow. (Note: There were no other issues, GPU temp(54-56C) and such are all normal when the issue occurrs)

PS: This could be your issues as well, depending on when this W10 update rolled out and where.
PPS: If you are having issues, post as many relevant specs as possible, so we can compare and maybe find/isolate the issue.

CharlieFreak wrote: »

I didn't read every reply, but wondering if you've ruled out add-ons? Action Duaration Reminder is one that I have isolated as causing massive performance issues for me. 20-40 fps loss and a weird stuttering effect.

Interesting. I deleted add-ons one by one, including my UI, and nothing changed. I did have Action Duration Reminder installed, but removing it didn't help. I appreciate the perspective though.

I don't think it's the recent Windows 10 update, because my issues started before then, but that's probably not helping.

I am going to take this rig apart, clean the entire thing, and repaste it. Let's see what happens then.

Someone asked for specs:

i7-9 700 (8-core, 12MB cache, up to 4.7GHz, tends to float around 3.8GHz)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
32GB DDR4-2400MHz ram
1TB NVMe SSD

I have loved this machine, but something is going terribly wrong. %) I was at my guild hall the other day and my cpu was creeping through the 90s. It seems Alinor, Blackwood, Vastyr tax the hell out of it, when they weren't a big deal at all before. Hope what I do above helps.

Sarannah wrote: »

PS: Doubt taking your computer apart is going to help, as that would only make a few degrees of difference. And I seriously doubt that would affect FPS in any way.

Sorry you're experiencing this too. I was wondering if perhaps they did something during the patch where I experienced it, I honestly have no idea.

However, I have some hope that repasting and giving the thing a good clean out might do more than reduce temps by a few degrees. I found an article from another Alienware owner that started getting 90+ temps and doing a big clean and repasting dropped temps by about 20 degrees.

Something about the game is absolutely making my rig work harder though. It doesn't seem to be related to add-ons.

Sarannah wrote: »

PS: Doubt taking your computer apart is going to help, as that would only make a few degrees of difference. And I seriously doubt that would affect FPS in any way.

Well, you'll be as stunned as I was seeing a 20-30 degree improvement.

In case anyone else was following, I took my laptop apart and repasted the cpu and gpu. Paste over both was in bad shape. Used entry level stuff I think - Arctic Mx-4.

Coming into Betnikh was seeing cpu temps in the 40s. Going to a dragon fight the GPU hit 69, the CPU stayed in the 50s.

However, I'm still seeing the big frame drops in the city of Rimmen, just as I was before. It seems much steadier outside of the city or less populated areas.

I wonder if this could have anything to do with the option to turn pets off.

I'm going to turn multithreaded rendering back on, which will improve FPS overall anyway, and this time without melting my PC. Really thrilled I did this anyway, even if it hasn't quite solved the mystery.

From the FPS drops after update 33 thread, a post from Fabi95

"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.
Edited by Fabi95 on April 8, 2022 4:11PM"

Has this been ruled out?

Kirawolfe wrote: »

Running around Craglorn, not in a city. 140-130fps, 50s temps, stuttering...

My friend, when I had horrendous stuttering fighting the group boss in the public dungeon Nchthnkarst in Blackreach, said he was getting the stuttering too, and this is the only game he gets that on.

So, I really don't think this is my computer anymore. Back to Zos - what did you do a few updates ago?

Are you, by any chance, running the "MiniMap by Fyrakin [Masteroshi430's branch]" addon? I found that this was causing serious stuttering issues with my game. Switching to a different minimap (Votan's Minimap in my case) completely resolved the issue.

Hey. Been a while. I'm still on medium settings. MaxCores is set to 8, frames locked to 200.

I'm in Sweetwater Cascades - focused on a wall , looking at menus, and my GPU is creeping up to 84 degrees.

O.o

I hate it when things do not work right, so I experimented quite a bit to get this issue fixed. And I was able to fix it completely, for the last four playing sessions(2+ hours each) my FPS was a steady 60 FPS again. And I specifically went to the areas where the issue used to appear for me, just to check if it was still happening. Which it no longer did.
So I did everything I could think of: Updating drivers, changing ESO settings, even updated my BIOS drivers(very risky), checked windows settings/updates, etc. But none of it worked. So after some research, I found out Nvidia has 'recently' added some new power management settings, one of which is "optimal power". Nvidia was so kind(ahem) to automatically select this option for everyone. Which for normal applications/games is no issue, as they draw a constantly similar amount of power for the GPU to use. But in ESO, which can have load spikes(the trigger), this is a bad thing. Because every time the game had the GPU require more resources/power, this power wasn't available due to this setting. Meaning: in order to compensate the GPU lowered it's output, causing the FPS to drop drastically. How much the drop and how often, depends on the GPU and display settings someone would be using.

What I did to fix it:
**Before changing any settings, write down what settings you are changing, and what the original value was. Just in case you want to change everything back. Lower the ESO's in-game graphical settings beforehand, just to be sure.**
Step 1: Go to the Nvidia settings control panel -> go to manage 3D settings -> click the tab for program settings(do not change these settings globally, or your GPU will be working overtime even when staring at the desktop) -> click the list of programs and find elder scrolls online - > select elder scrolls online -> when elder scrolls online is selected, change the power management setting to "optimal performance". -> After doing this, click apply in the bottom right.
Step 2: Now check the desktop icon(right click -> properties) with which you start ESO, and repeat the above steps while adding that specific path to the Nvidia settings program list as well. This way you can be 100% sure this setting is applied, no matter how you start ESO.

Note: With this new setting, depending on your GPU and your ESO gamesettings, your GPU may run at a hotter temperature and will draw more power when running ESO. My GPU remained the same temp, as my gamesettings are quite low. Check the GPU temp, and lower your gamesettings accordingly. (maybe lower the in-game graphical settings beforehand)
Note: After applying the fix, run ESO and check if you need to lower your in-game graphical settings. You may need to lower your ESO settings, to make sure your GPU does not become too stressed with "optimal performance" on. (for me turning v-sync on was an option, as my monitor only runs at 60hz(FPS))
Note: My "max FPS" and "max background FPS" are off and my vertical synchronisation is on for all ESO additions in these Nvidia settings. While in the ESO game itself, my v-sync is on, my limit background FPS is off, and multi-threaded rendering is off. Some of you may need different settings for these, to keep your GPU from going insane. Mainly the "max FPS" setting may help with this.

Hopefully this 'fix' will help some of you as well. And be careful, if you are unsure if your in-game graphical settings are too high for this fix, lower them before trying this fix. You can always turn the in-game graphical settings back on/up again after trying the fix.

PS: For some players this option could have automatically been set already, due to using GeForce experience or through steam settings. Personally I set all options/everything manually, so when programs automatically change settings, I have to figure things out all over again.

PPS: I'm playing in 4k, on a max 60hz(FPS) monitor.

TLDR: Change the Nvidia power management option for ESO to "optimal performance".