Stuttering/freezing/locking up PC in loading screen

Nodaj · June 8

Normally, I have no issues running this game. I have tried everything that I know of to try to fix this issue. Nearly every time I enter a loading screen, the game locks up my PC and causes significant input lag, audio popping, and significantly longer loading times than normal (have waited nearly 10 minutes on some loads).
I have tried, disabling addons, reinstalling the game 2x, deleting the shader file, using process lasso to prioritize the game process. I am at my wits end on this issue. I now have 0 addons installed incase somehow they were still affecting my game's performance. I have a 4080/7800x3d/32 gb ddr5 ram, so my PC isn't limiting me here. I just want to be able to play the game and not spend half of my play session on my phone because I'm in a near infinite loading screen.

Nodaj · June 8

Also i might add: sometimes when i load a character, I will get booted back to the main menu for an error code 303, but that's the only error code I have seen and it's still kinda rare when it happens.

Nodaj · June 8

Also, this issue has been repeating since the u46 patch

ConnorRWS · June 10

I just wanted to add that I'm also having this same issue.
Starting with U46, I also get the same lock-up on loading screens. Tried without addons, complete reinstall, etc.
At first, it seemed like it improved after a system restart, a full restart not shut-down and turn back on again. It seems like that was maybe a placebo however as I'm back to square one with no improvements.
As with Nodaj above, my PC isn't the limit here either with an i7 9700K/16GB DDR5/4060. ESO is even installed on the NVMe.
I've had loads that lock up my computer so bad that my PC things I've disconnected from the internet, and the game will kick me back to the launcher..

davapoole · June 10

i know you said you turned off your addons but were the libs on. also can remove the addons and saved variables folders put them on desktop and restart game shut down if running. it will put new ones in and see without any if its better. i also had it where it was my addons not loading quick enough years ago stopped me logging in. so without the addons and saved variables folders and see if that makes game work then if ok for a bit re load addons a few at a time

Nodaj · June 11

davapoole wrote: »

i know you said you turned off your addons but were the libs on. also can remove the addons and saved variables folders put them on desktop and restart game shut down if running. it will put new ones in and see without any if its better. i also had it where it was my addons not loading quick enough years ago stopped me logging in. so without the addons and saved variables folders and see if that makes game work then if ok for a bit re load addons a few at a time

yeah for good measure, I uninstalled all my addons and libs, so when I open the addons menu in game it's empty and off. still having the issue

Sarannah · June 11

My reply from another thread may help you here, especially as the audio popping is one of the major issues with the latest nvidia drivers. Go read the nvidia forums for more information.

The latest driver versions of the nividia display drivers are having some serious issues with the 50 and 40 series. Issues important enough where some gaming companies are even telling players with a 40 series GPU to only use the 566.36 nvidia driver version as that is the most recent and last stable one. Might be worth taking a look.

KZavi · June 12

Same issue as above. Really hope this gets looked at soon as the game is unplayable right now.

Nodaj · June 13

KZavi wrote: »

Same issue as above. Really hope this gets looked at soon as the game is unplayable right now.

Do you by chance have wallpaper engine running?? I just found that by having it completely off, I'm not running into any stuttering issues so far. I will update if I run into anything else!!!

ConnorRWS · June 13

Nodaj wrote: »

KZavi wrote: »

Same issue as above. Really hope this gets looked at soon as the game is unplayable right now.

Do you by chance have wallpaper engine running?? I just found that by having it completely off, I'm not running into any stuttering issues so far. I will update if I run into anything else!!!

No wallpaper engine for me. Literally just hard crashed to desktop with the whole PC locked up.

Lupus_Hortian · June 14

I have the same problem. I tried everything from newer or older NVidia driver, removing Windows Updates, running with no addons, stopping all other programs and services, setting compatibility settings etc., the situation is always the same

When I start the game the audio starts stuttering, due to 100% CPU load. This wasn't the case before the last patch and my system was capable of running the game in the highest settings before.
In the game I can slooowly move, but as soon as I move faster the game and audio starts stuttering again
With some characters you can easily force a system freeze (the one with this Carneval feathers) within some meters of running
I can "play" for 10-20 minutes and then the complete system freezes, so mouse, no keyboard, no Alt-Ctrl-Del
In some cases the game crashes after 5-7 minutes and I can use the computer as before, sometimes I have to hard reset the computer

It would be nice if this get fixed on Monday with the upcoming patch.

silky_soft · June 16

Maybe download process lasso. Easy to see all at once process class, affinity, cpu usage, avg usage, memory being used.

tbuch · June 16

I'm having similar problems. Been playing the game since release, and I've never had these kind of problems. It seems to be something with loading - the biggest problems are in loading screens, but even once I'm loaded in, going to a crowded area will cause similar problems (when it has to load all the player graphics).

silky_soft · June 16

If you get process lasso and hwinfo to prove it's not your end. Then they'll have to actually address it. Launch the game from the exe, not the launcher. Chuck it in window mode full screen. Then you can alt tab to lasso with usage as the order filter and see what is going on.

Sounds like a driver issue for gpu. Nvidia have had bad drivers for 3 months (low latency mode, screen capture or the need for ddu in safe mode, missing hdmi/dp ports).

(Edit: turn off wifi or unplug then ddu in safe mode. Only turn wifi or network back on after install of drivers. Prevent windows being annoying.)

Maybe power issue from cpu throttling itself, another program like razer app or rgb spamming cpu.

With my 13700hx (12900k) I can reproduce the lock up like this by limiting the cpu affinity or putting them on ecore or turning off boost.

g0thiCiCecReaM · June 17

My gf has been having performance issues mainly in just Alinor, textures are slow to load, fps drops to like 10, super laggy. Just started happening with the last update.

Masteroshi430 · June 17

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

If it doesn't work for you because you have an old or very powerful or weird machine, try to decrease the values step by step, but the max cores value has to be higher than the threads one.

OthellTemplar · June 18

Same problem here since update 46. I
have tested the processor, memory, and GPU. I rolled back to old drivers, tried a clean boot of Windows, and nothing works. The game suddenly hits 100% CPU usage and freezes, making the PC slow for a while, sometimes it locks up.
If I wait about 5-6 minutes, the PC eventually recovers and the game crashes.
I play other MMOs, but the problem is exclusive to ESO.

KZavi · June 18

UserSettings.ini edits indeed work, fantastic)

Yudo · June 18

Same, loading zones makes cpu go brrr and almost gets locked up each time.
Tried disable multi threading or set affinity, but those rlly only avoid critical lockups. It is still bad.

Masteroshi430 · June 18

KZavi wrote: »

UserSettings.ini edits indeed work, fantastic)

Great, can others try and report?

Nodaj · June 18

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

KZavi wrote: »

UserSettings.ini edits indeed work, fantastic)

Great, can others try to report?

works for me too! all of my values were set to -1 by default. loading and running around the zone are much smoother experiences now. Thank you!

Masteroshi430 · June 19

Nodaj wrote: »

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

KZavi wrote: »

UserSettings.ini edits indeed work, fantastic)

Great, can others try to report?

works for me too! all of my values were set to -1 by default. loading and running around the zone are much smoother experiences now. Thank you!

Yes I think the default -1 value is "let the game decide" but the ZOS engineer dev in charge of that has yet to put the right math there to adapt the behaviour to that windows 11 update which is apparently priorizing the foreground/full screen running app over background running apps in an extreme way.

The maths I use are exagerated but are intended to improve things in all cases (in case the lag is caused by this).

The tip to modify these parameters was undirectly given by a ZOS engineer on the addon dev chat so they are probably working on fixing this.

silky_soft · June 19

I'll try it out when I get home, check to see if thats what I already got set. I remember that line, from ages ago there was this problem.

Here is the comment from that time.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7550002#Comment_7550002

Nodaj · June 19

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Nodaj wrote: »

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

KZavi wrote: »

UserSettings.ini edits indeed work, fantastic)

Great, can others try to report?

works for me too! all of my values were set to -1 by default. loading and running around the zone are much smoother experiences now. Thank you!

Yes I think the default -1 value is "let the game decide" but the ZOS engineer dev in charge of that has yet to put the right math there to adapt the behaviour to that windows 11 update which is apparently priorizing the foreground/full screen running app over background running apps in an extreme way.

The maths I use are exagerated but are intended to improve things in all cases (in case the lag is caused by this).

The tip to modify these parameters was undirectly given by a ZOS engineer on the addon dev chat so they are probably working on fixing this.

you're the goat - thank you

OthellTemplar · June 19

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

I changed the value of the line SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" to "2".
Once that was done, I tested the game under the same conditions as when the freezing issue occurred, and at no point did the game reach 100% processing, which normally caused the game to freeze and crash.

Masteroshi430 · June 19

OthellTemplar wrote: »

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

I changed the value of the line SET MaxCoresToUse.4 "-1" to "2".
Once that was done, I tested the game under the same conditions as when the freezing issue occurred, and at no point did the game reach 100% processing, which normally caused the game to freeze and crash.

Change the 3 lines and test for a few days

Frayton · June 20

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

Thank you! The horrible game stutter and system freezing has stopped.

* Note: I didn't follow the exact formula in that post. I adjusted it to suit my system.

Raz415 · June 21

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

This fixed it for me, thanks!

Masteroshi430 · June 21

One person reported my fix also fixing FPS drops in crowded towns, which is surprising... This needs investigation.

KZavi · June 22

Servadei wrote: »

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

Thank you! The horrible game stutter and system freezing has stopped.

* Note: I didn't follow the exact formula in that post. I adjusted it to suit my system.

Interesting, what did you change?

Frayton · June 23

KZavi wrote: »

Servadei wrote: »

Masteroshi430 wrote: »

Try this:
If you have lag problems in ESO since a specific windows 11 update (24h2) (especially during loading screens and occasionaly in game), find you processor specs, it's number of cores and number of threads, open your ESO UserSettings.txt file and find these 3 settings:

SET MaxCoresToUse.4
-> here enter the number of cores for your processor multiplied by 3/4 (n*3/4) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumJobThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)
SET RequestedNumWorkerThreads
-> here enter the number of threads for your processor multiplied by 2/3 (n*2/3) (round to the higher integer if the result is not an integer)

It solved the lag problems for me, don't modify if you have no lag.

Thank you! The horrible game stutter and system freezing has stopped.

* Note: I didn't follow the exact formula in that post. I adjusted it to suit my system.

Interesting, what did you change?

I changed the same settings, but I adjusted the values lower than suggested.