Mouse cursor far off-center since Necrom

Coorbin · June 2023

I am unable to play ESO on my Mac ever since updating to Necrom. All UI elements appear to register my mouse's position about 800 pixels below and to the right of where it really is. For elements on the right-hand side of the screen, I am unable to click them at all.

This is not an addon related issue, as I have no addons installed for this test. I have two 5120x1440 monitors and an Apple Studio Display on the side. I think my monitor configuration may have something to do with it.

Never had a problem with ESO before. I can reproduce the problem with both an Intel and an Apple Silicon Mac, so don't blame it on me using "unsupported" hardware.

I need a workaround or fix for this, urgently. I'm a guild leader and right now I have to resort to using a Windows machine, because ESO won't run at all under Crossover Mac or on Windows through Parallels. This is very frustrating.

Coorbin · June 2023

After doing some additional testing, this is definitely a problem related to my monitor configuration. To be clear, I have two 5120x1440 monitors "stacked" vertically with an additional 5K display off on the side. This has worked flawlessly for years with ESO, so I'm not sure why this update suddenly had to break it.

Many Mac-native games don't do great out of the box with this monitor setup, but I'm usually able to at least edit a config file to get it to kinda somewhat cooperate. I've never encountered any issues with the mouse cursor being off-center before, either with ESO or any other games with my monitor config.

Also, I spent many hours talking to Apple Support years ago when this monitor configuration used to have problems with MacOS itself. Before, the displays would often reconfigure themselves (their orientation relative to each other on the desktop) between sleep/screen lock cycles. But ever since MacOS Ventura, Apple confirmed that my display configuration is officially supported using DisplayPort USB-C alt mode, and I no longer have weird monitor orientation issues.

In trying to fix this, I have been making random tweaks to ESO's UserSettings.txt and MachineSettings.txt files, including deleting them and resetting them to defaults. I've tried changing every mouse-related and UI scaling-related setting. Nothing has worked except for unplugging my laptop from my monitors and just using the laptop's builtin display directly.

Since I do much more than just play ESO all day, I definitely need my monitors to be plugged-in long term. That means I need ESO to work with the monitors plugged-in like it used to for years. I hope this isn't based on some awful hard-coded assumptions ESO is making deep in the engine that can only be solved by hoping and praying for a patch.

Coorbin · June 2023

I keep replying because I'm finding out more about this... Here are the results of my testing with various monitor configurations:

1. Macbook Pro internal display only: Works fine
2. ONE 5120x1440 display, with all other displays detached, and the internal laptop screen disabled: Works fine
3. ONE 5120x1440 display, with the 5K Studio Display also attached: mouse cursor position is off-center and the game is unplayable
4. Launch the game with only ONE 5120x1440 monitor, then attach the Studio Display 5K after the game is running: mouse continues to work fine
5. Launch the game with ONE display, then connect ALL THREE displays and orient them as desired after the game is running: mouse continues to work fine!!!

CONCLUSION: The bug is that the game doesn't start right with multiple monitors, somehow detecting the mouse cursor's location wrong. When the game starts with only one monitor enabled, everything is great even after enabling the monitors again later.

Coorbin · June 2023

Submitted ticket 230607-000810 describing the root cause of the problem. Since this is such a well-documented, well-understood problem now (it is if you read my message), hopefully you guys will be able to fix it?

vladhuk · June 2023

Have the same issue. I use a external monitor 1920x1080 and there is an issue with cursor offset too (can't even select a character in character menu), but it works fine on internal MacBook display even with connected monitor. Thankfully, your workaround helped me.

My steps to fix:
1. Close the laptop lid to keep working only external display.
2. Launch the game on external display.
3. Open the lid back.
4. Now cursor works fine on both displays.

Besides that, I also had an issue with UI - it became incredibly small after Necrom update and those steps fixed UI problem as well.

AutomaticPushcart · June 2023

Same problem on M1 pro. Launching on an external 1920x1080 monitor, I'm unable to select anything on screen like user name or password field, characters, settings. Maybe this is related to some of the resolution issues people are posting about in another thread.

Closing the laptop lid then launching the game worked for me! Thanks for the workaround.

On a different website, another mac user found another workaround: putting the external monitor in HiDPI mode, but similar to them, it made things like the cursor look very big on my screen.

Coorbin · June 2023

I figured out what it is.

When the game launches, it assumes that all of your monitors' aspect ratios are the same. If you move your ESO window from a monitor with one aspect ratio, to a different one, the mouse cursor will be off-center.

If you have monitors with multiple different resolutions/aspect ratios, it seems to pick one arbitrarily. The one it picks isn't for the monitor I like to play it on, which is why it seems not to work.

lonnml · June 2023

MacBook Pro 2017 linked with 1 external monitor which I usually play on. The mouse was stuck in the bottom right corner. Closing my laptop, and launching the game on the monitor fixes the issue

Fireslasher · June 2023

vladhuk wrote: »

Have the same issue. I use a external monitor 1920x1080 and there is an issue with cursor offset too (can't even select a character in character menu), but it works fine on internal MacBook display even with connected monitor. Thankfully, your workaround helped me.

My steps to fix:
1. Close the laptop lid to keep working only external display.
2. Launch the game on external display.
3. Open the lid back.
4. Now cursor works fine on both displays.

Besides that, I also had an issue with UI - it became incredibly small after Necrom update and those steps fixed UI problem as well.

I have the same issue on MBP 16" with M1, and this is the only thing that worked, thanks for the workaround dude!

FeralFifi · June 2023

I have an iMac with the game on a second, gaming monitor and the same issue - put in a support ticket a week ago and was given all the usual "try this" strategies - none of which worked.

Bethesda's final response has been underwhelming and not all that encouraging unfortunately.

I have been researching a fair bit on other people's workarounds and fixes as this was a problem in 2018. Anyway. I had found that the mouse was reading as way off and I tried all the other suggested fixes to no avail.

Copied the UserSettings.txt file then deleted the original and re-launched - didn't work, changed the window from Windowed to Full screen, changed the window from Full screen to Windowed etc, etc - all of which I reported to Bethesda.

Then I had the game at the character screen on my monitor and I wanted to get behind it but still open, so I dragged it over onto my computer screen, and lo and behold, the mouse worked fine. Dragged it back and mouse not working again. Rinse and repeat. I also reported this to Bethesda.

I'd launched the game on my monitor though. Maybe I'll try launching it on the computer screen and dragging that over to the monitor, but I don't think that's going to work either.

Given what Corbin has said, although my game launched onto the monitor, it launches with the same resolution as is on my computer screen.

I've also asked whether there's any compensation going to be given once they have this sorted, seeing as this month's Daily reward is being promoted to end up with 100k gold etc (and as a fairly new player - I was intending to work diligently at getting this), and as an ESO subscriber, I'm currently paying but can't play (I can't properly see things on the iMac screen, hence the monitor - being old and all). I've not had any response to this. What do Bethesda usually do in these situations?

Coorbin · June 2023

FeralFifi wrote: »

Given what Corbin has said, although my game launched onto the monitor, it launches with the same resolution as is on my computer screen.

My current understanding is that the issue is about aspect ratio (the ratio between the length and width of the screen). I _think_, if you have two monitors at different resolutions but the same aspect ratio, it should work fine on both monitors.

FeralFifi wrote: »

I've also asked whether there's any compensation going to be given once they have this sorted, seeing as this month's Daily reward is being promoted to end up with 100k gold etc (and as a fairly new player - I was intending to work diligently at getting this), and as an ESO subscriber, I'm currently paying but can't play (I can't properly see things on the iMac screen, hence the monitor - being old and all). I've not had any response to this. What do Bethesda usually do in these situations?

I've never heard of Bethesda compensating people for client problems before. Maybe if the servers were down for a month, they might do something, but the chance that they're going to do something for a Mac user is basically 0, in my opinion.

FeralFifi · June 2023

Anything new on this issue? - as it still seems to be a thing - I still can't operate the game on my gaming monitor.

Master_Fluff · June 2023

I've noticed this annoyance too. I can play the game fine on my iMac at any resolution but on my 4K TV that's not possible.
I have to set it to 3008*1692 or lower to get the mouse to align properly. And it's the same aspect ratio on both displays; 16:9. Strange.

raguvy · June 2023

I have the same issue on an Intel Macbook Pro without an external monitor (also checked, display is not extended to iPad)

FeralFifi · July 2023

Not even the Devs are weighing in on this issue - which has now persisted for weeks. Support tickets get closed out, no word from Bethesda on whether they're even working on it. I'm getting pretty much over using my iMac screen to play, when I have a big beautiful gaming monitor parked next to it that I can't use ESO on.

Has anyone heard anything?

denisclairetneb18_ESO · July 2023

It's a strategy.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7799455#Comment_7799455

lemonbalm · November 2023

I use the BetterDisplay app and can set the external monitor to a HiDPI resolution. I used to have to create a dummy monitor, but now I can just the resolution to any of the HiDPI ones I want. This fixes the cursor position issue for me.

Without the BetterDisplay app, I can still set a HiDPI resolution using advanced display setting but the os limits me more on which resolutions I'm allowed to pick with are HiDPI.

kadok00 · November 2023

I can confirm BetterDisplay fixed this issue for me as well.