Hi there. this will be a long post I'm afraid, but I've been struggling for a LONG time.
This is my first post, after finally being able to have an invite to the forum....
Been playing for more than 5 years, CP 2400+, playing every day.
I love the game, its contents, its mechanics... The engine, somewhat less, given the problems I've been experiencing for now YEARS....
I've always had rigs more than enough to handle the game.
Nevertheless, I always experienced sudden lags, stuttering, sometimes for long periods, then no more, etc ; I always blamed it on my weak ADSL (10 Mbits, rather not stable). Now that I have gigabit broadband for a few months, I can rule that out.
SHORT VERSION:
The problem: I experience STUTTERING (not LAG) after some time : when I start the game, eveything is smooth as butter, even in crowded zones. Then, eventually, after 5....10...20 minutes when I'm lucky, the stuttering begins. The ping stays ridiculously low (40-60 ms) even if as we all know, we all have a "500ms feeling" while playing, the fps stay steady in the 90-98 zone on a 100 hz screen.
ONLY solution is to LOG OUT and RELOG ; then everything is smooth again...for a while....rinse and repeat.
I've tried EVERYTHING (check long version for details) but to no avail, and I'm 100% SURE it's NOT a problem on MY SIDE ; It's either an ENGINE problem or a SERVER problem.
What makes me say that? => The more I crank up the settings (distance, shadows, ambient occlusion, Anti-aliasing, etc), the QUICKER the stuttering comes, and the HEAVIER it is. For example, if I play at minimal settings, the stuttering may come as long as after 40 minutes, and it's mild = playable ; If I use maxed out settings, count 5-10 minutes and the stuttering makes me feel I'm playing at 15 fps (choppy as hell) even if the panel states 40ms for the ping and 96 fps.
This is driving me insane, I'm at the point where I begin playing AWAITING for the moment when the stutter comes....I even set a timer to make some stats. It's a fun meta-gaming you might say, but given the hundreds of hours and money invested in ESO+ and extensions, I'm beginning to feel a bit stupid to continue just trying to play with acceptable conditions.
There have been numerous similar threads over the years, I've read them ALL, tried ALL solutions, and I think the general consensus is that the problem is on ZOS's side, that is the usual conclusion each time before/after such threads are eventually closed because they're too old etc.
For the full details, you have the long version
LONG VERSION:
STUTTERING (not LAG), directly scaling with graphics details, arriving quicker and "heavier".
"Funny thing" : when I enter a solo zone (main story) or delve, the stuttering usually magically disappears....funny eh? My hardware or drivers are aware of that? or could it be....ON ZOS SIDE MAYBE?
COMPUTER:
Intel i7 9900K@4.9 Ghz on GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS Pro
Fractal Design Pure Loop 360
2x16 Go Patriot Viper DDR4 3200 40-20-20-16 OC
@3866 41-21-21-18 1.4v
SSD NVMe OCZ 256Gb = WINDOWS
SSD NVMe Crucial P5plus 2 Tb = ESO
EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING
PSU= Seasonic Prime 850W
SCREEN = HUAWEI MateView GT 34 (2K)
DRIVERS = lastest Nvidia DCH 551.46 (= those with the "no more stutter" hotfix! I'd laugh.....) ; those are clean drivers with Nvcleaninstall (no telemetry, no GFE, no...)
Hardware is ROCK STABLE, passes OCCT CPU / LINPACK (small FFTs) / OCCT POWER / TESTMEM5 on **24 HOURS** (yes that's how I test my OC/UV)
RTX 3080 is slighly undervolted, a classic, and YES it works FINE.
Windows is on a NVME drive, ESO (Steam version) on another one.
My motherboard has a (known) 'broken' NIC Intel chipset (caused real lags, no software solution) so I use a PCI-E Realtek NIC instead / disable the onboard one.
The PC is only for gaming, no cluttered with tools etc
I'm playing on EU server. ISP= Free/PROXAD
I have HUNDREDS of addons, they use roughly 500 Mb ingame, stable while gaming (I even do a periodic purge with ShissuLUAMemory addon)
Obviously I do not talk of the initial lag when I log in a character, due to MasterMerchant/Libhistoire kicking in etc, this is just at the start and NORMAL.
Multithreading optimization is obviously ON (tried without, no change), for what it's worth, as there is only one core working hard as we all know. Max load on the main core is 80% with maxed out settings / distance etc. But I've had stutter with that core at 30% of course...
All my other games work flawlessly of course
What I've tried (in no particular order or number of iterations....):
- reinstalling windows multiple times : NO CHANGE
- reinstalling the game multiple times : NO CHANGE
- clearing the usersettings.txt : NO CHANGE (except less lag initially because base settings are somewhat "medium")
- deleting shadercache.cooked : NO CHANGE (except less lag initially, IT SEEMS)
- obviously REMOVED ALL ADDONS (I have hundreds, handled with Minion, all work fine) : NO CHANGE !!!
- tweaking the usersettings.txt (ANY trick you saw on the internet I tried!) : NO CHANGE
- tweaking usersettings.txt i manually with a max distance=20 after a clean start : NO CHANGE
- routing all the ESO TCP/UDP ports to my gaming PC : NO CHANGE
- even tried to bypass possible routing problems (they are known too) between my ISP and the servers using FishEye : NO CHANGE
- ALL settings mixes in the Nvidia panel (VSYNC : adaptive, fast, etc, triple buffering, low latency ETC) : NO CHANGE
- VSYNC OFF/ON in the game : NO CHANGE
- G-SYNC OFF/ON : NO CHANGE
- tried the "remove all other audio drivers" : NO CHANGE
- maximum performance on windows settings (CPU+GPU) : NO CHANGE
- deactivated MSI Afterburner/Rivastats as they can cause stuttering (=no undervolting, GPU@normal settings) : NO CHANGE
- Resizeable BAR ON/OFF : NO CHANGE
- Lighter W10 "ReviOS" : NO CHANGE
- ISLC to tweak windows timer @0.5ms / HPET OFF = NO CHANGE
- disabled MPO = NO CHANGE
- disabled Windows Defender : NO CHANGE
I've surely forgotten some stuff, hard remembering all the external tweaks I may have tried.
But I insist on one thing : when I start playing, its a pure pleasure for a handful of minutes....before the fall. The ONLY and simple solution is LOG OUT / RELOG.
If someone has the solution and proves to me that it's a problem on MY SIDE, I'd be more than happy to be wrong, and stay silent forever...
Sorry if I may sound a bit bitter/sarcastic/agressive but I've had it.
So please, ZOS, don't answer to me to file a customer report ingame, or reset my router, or play without addons, my next ESO+ 6 months renewal is within 15 days....and...I'm quite fed up.