Thank you for the heads up! My desktop computer doesn't use Nvidia, but my new laptop does, so I'll keep an eye out for that.

NVIDIA in general seems to have issues with ESO, or at least my experience with it has been really sour.

ESO is somehow the only game I own that routinely crashes my GPU driver, causing a freeze and reset of the display at seemingly random intervals, and it's done that for several patches and driver updates now.

Huh I thought it was a Linux-only error. I had screen tearing and when I tried to enable/disable Vsync the game would crash (this happened in other games too). I did rollback my system (yay for rpm-ostree) but I didn't know something similar was happening on the windows side.

TY for the info OP!
I saw the notif icon for new drivers earlier but since I ran into a few performance headaches with another version I never install right away anymore. Auto-update is disabled too.
Now I'll wait a couple weeks and then search online to see if there were any updates or issues.

Right now the game is working as well as can be expected, not going to muck with gfx drivers especially before the holiday weekend

Tandor wrote: »

No need to update drivers if everything is running well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

My graphics drivers are usually pretty old, only updated if forced to do so by Windows Updates on my Win10 machine, and with Nvidia cards on both that machine and my Win7 machine (protected by 0patch). Both have run ESO and everything else flawlessly since launch, and I suspect tried and trusted drivers are one of the keys to that.

^THIS! I wish maintenance at work followed this philosophy!! "We're here to do our preventative maintenance." "WHY? Everything is running great????" PM gets completed. "Why is my machine suddenly running so bad?!? Now it's going to take weeks to get it running normal again!" Thankfully the maintenance on my shift is good about, "everything running good? Ok, we'll mark the PM complete." I've trained them well!!

Nvidia has been going through a bad stretch with drivers lately -- like the past year or more. They're fine on a lot of pre-built systems, but on custom systems and higher-end pre-builts with performance settings turned on in the BIOS including just XMP/DOCP/EOCP --things start to fall apart.

The most recent relatively stable release is 528.49, and that may still need some tweaking to get completely stable. Other stable drivers are 512.95, 517.48, 516.94, 522.25, and 526.86. Older drivers are less likely to need additional tweaking, but are also more likely to have limitations or issues with newer games. It all depends on what game you run. (In my case, I need 528.49 to address issues with Microsoft Flight Simulator.)

The general recommendations from the Nvidia user community are, first, use the Nvidia driver control panel to set the game's power option to "Prefer Maximum Performance". (Do this for each individual game having issues, not as a global default.)

If your GPU is factory overclocked, turn it down to Nvidia default using your card's preferred tool -- typically MSI Afterburner, Precision X1, or Asus GPU Tweak.

If it tests OK, use your Afterburner or whatever tool you use to return the card to its factory overclock, but then increase the card's target power input percentage to its maximum value but keep the maximum GPU temperature at its original value. (This ensures the card still safely throttles if temperature gets too high, but allows it to use all available power.)

If it tests OK now, you're good. If it's still occasionally stuttering/having driver crashes, then it gets more complicated.

You can try slightly under-clocking your GPU with MSI Afterburner or other utility. (This is the only option if you have limited BIOS controls for memory and memory controller timings.)

You can try noting all the memory settings put into BIOS when XMP/DOCP/EOCP is turned on, and then turn it off but re-enter those values manually to get the same effect. Then test. Sometimes this is enough.

If there are still problems, you'll need to slightly de-clock your memory below the XMP/DOCP/EOCP profile. Actual performance is unlikely be impacted -- you're simply seeking the maximum stable value that makes the GPU and driver happy by providing the most stable RAM-to-GPU transfer. Depending on your system and your appetite for tweaking, you may also find that carefully adjusting memory voltage and memory controller/SOC voltages and offsets can also help or be required. The "Auto" settings on most motherboards are often not sufficient for the extremely tight timings needed with modern memory and CPUs combined with the demands from the current Nvidia drivers. It gets even more squirrelly if you happen to be using all four channels of DRAM, not just two.

TL;DR version -- Always set reasonably demanding games to "Prefer Maximum Performance" in the game's power options on the Nvidia control panel. Allow the GPU to use as much power as it can get. Beyond that, you'll need to find the best way to fine-tune the relationship between your computer's RAM and the GPU. This is just the state of current Nvidia drivers. Even if your system benchmarks perfectly, real-world GPU use can reveal hidden stability issues specifically in memory-to-GPU communication.

My PC has been running hard here lately with the Necrom and the latest Nvidia driver so I went back to an older driver and thing have settle down. I thought something seemed wrong, Thanks.

AMD graphics with latest drivers, no issues.

UnseenCat wrote: »

The most recent relatively stable release is 528.49, and that may still need some tweaking to get completely stable.

Thanks so much @UnseenCat I've been having issues for weeks now with my game freezing up randomly. I downgraded back to this version and I can finally alt-tab again or close the game again without fear of freeze issues. I always thought it was better to immediately update my Nvidia drivers when they release but I'll now be more careful with that! Thanks again!!!