FPS drops since latest update

SamWale · May 2014

Hi,

I recently installed a GeForce GTX 660 in my Mac Pro to play ESO, and have been running smoothly on Ultra-High graphics settings with no problems at all, until recently.

Since the 1.1.2 update I've been experiencing serious drops in frame rate as low as 20fps, particularly in outside areas and cities. The game feels very laggy compared to how it performed before the update. It runs smoother on Medium settings (40-60fps), but still drops below 25fps every 10-20 seconds.

I have 20 GB of RAM and 2 x 2.26 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors. Latest version of OSX Mavericks (10.9.3) installed.

I'm only using 3 add-ons - MiniMap, HarvestMap and Skyshards - which I've tried disabling with no improvement, and have tried the Repair function in Launcher. I also don't run any other applications while playing ESO.

Is this a known Mac client issue that's being looked into? I'd be very grateful for any advice on how to improve the performance.

Thanks!

Neomar · May 2014

I dont know of any issues concerning fps-drops on the mac-client. but my impression of MiniMap was that it steals me some chunk of fps, like 5-10. Deinstalled it for that reason. That was some weeks ago, maybe it has improved since.

Moonraker · May 2014

SamWale wrote: »

Hi,

I recently installed a GeForce GTX 660 in my Mac Pro to play ESO, and have been running smoothly on Ultra-High graphics settings with no problems at all, until recently.

Since the 1.1.2 update I've been experiencing serious drops in frame rate as low as 20fps, particularly in outside areas and cities. The game feels very laggy compared to how it performed before the update. It runs smoother on Medium settings (40-60fps), but still drops below 25fps every 10-20 seconds.

I have 20 GB of RAM and 2 x 2.26 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors. Latest version of OSX Mavericks (10.9.3) installed.

I'm only using 3 add-ons - MiniMap, HarvestMap and Skyshards - which I've tried disabling with no improvement, and have tried the Repair function in Launcher. I also don't run any other applications while playing ESO.

Is this a known Mac client issue that's being looked into? I'd be very grateful for any advice on how to improve the performance.

Thanks!

Firstly ESO doesn't officially support dual CPU Macs as it says in the Known Issues;

I can't get ESO to run on my Dual-CPU Mac Pro

Currently, ESO does not officially support dual-CPU Mac Pros.

source
A workaround to get them to work was posted previously and some seem to just work but there may be other issues using one which is different from other Macs.

You didn't say what your normal Graphics settings were? I know that the default Ultra-High for instance they changed the default setting for View Distance from 62 > 100 which has quite a big impact on performance. I just push the slide down again and always run with Shadow Quality = Medium not Ultra which makes a decent difference with little quality degradation. Maybe there were other changes in other settings though I did not notice them in 1.1.2 update.

Have you tried both Fullscreen (reverts to Windowed(Fullscreen) in settings is a bug but actually same mode despite what it says) and Windowed? For some it makes a difference in FPS. For me it is marginal like a few FPS but others say more so especially in recent PC postings since they implemented it.

Check that resolution was not changed from previous one. I' not sure how you can change resolution now as it seems bugged and reported that.

Otherwise I also see reports generally of some drops in FPS occasionally and/ or lag especially in towns etc. like this so it is perhaps server side or related to changes in update 1.1.2 I don't suffer this myself. I suspect it is not Mac client specific.

SamWale · May 2014

Thanks Moonraker!

I'm aware that dual CPUs aren't supported yet, let's hope they change that soon as a lot of computers have more than one! I use mine primarily for music production so it makes a huge difference when running audio software.

I've checked my CPU usage while running ESO and it's using less than 10%, so doesn't appear to be struggling at all.

I've just been using the standard graphics presets under the settings menu. I reduced the View Distance and Shadow Quality on which seems to have helped a little, but Windowed/Fullscreen doesn't seem to make any noticeable difference. All add-ons are now disabled just to be sure.

When walking around near the lighthouse in Daggerfall it's running at around 60-80 fps, but as soon as I walk into the city and see other players and NPCs it quickly spikes down to around 15-25 fps.

Could this be a memory leak or server issue rather than graphics related? I'm playing on the EU server from the UK and have seen a lot of people complaining about latency, so wondering if this is the same problem.

Moonraker · May 2014

SamWale wrote: »

When walking around near the lighthouse in Daggerfall it's running at around 60-80 fps, but as soon as I walk into the city and see other players and NPCs it quickly spikes down to around 15-25 fps.

Could this be a memory leak or server issue rather than graphics related? I'm playing on the EU server from the UK and have seen a lot of people complaining about latency, so wondering if this is the same problem.

It's fairly typical for your FPS to drop in populated zones with more NPCs and players which have to be constantly loaded and updated into/ out of memory.

I would say that the drop seems more than I would expect. I usually get around 50-60FPS out of towns depending on location and activity. In town around 35-45FPS.

Usually when you ride or first arrive the FPS is lower as it is loading data. once you have been static for 5-10 seconds it usually then settles to normal.

So not sure why your seems to drop that much more if you are standing in a town.

The memory leak will not impact performance in FPS just that the more memory is used then it will tend to crash in less time. Typically now it's anything from 2-4 hours again depends on activity. In towns that would be reduced. In PvP it is/ was more like 25-40 minutes due to the large number of players and effects.

If you have occasional drops in FPS generally then it could reflect server lag as noted in other posts.

johngalt · May 2014

Sam,

I too have been having random drops in FPS with my 680 after this latest patch. I do not use minimap, so I don't think that is the issue. Although, like everyone, I get an FPS drop in town, this is happening in the middle of nowhere with no action happening.

SamWale · May 2014

At least it looks like it looks like a problem with the update/fix and not our computers then. I was running the game fine on Ultra-High before this update and now I'm having frame-rate problems even on Medium-High settings.

It's certainly worse in towns, but like you I'm still getting noticeable FPS drops out in the middle of nowhere.

I really hope this is something Zenimax are aware of and working on. The game looked so awesome on Ultra, I want that smooth gameplay back!

Windshadow_ESO · May 2014

On my ancient Mac Pro 1.1from mid 2006 osx 7.5.6 with dual 3ghz dual core 20 gig ram but with an ATI 4870 upgrade as a video card driving a pair of 24" 1920x1200 monitors I am seeing Ian improvement to the frame rate as well as letting me up my video selections a bit... But this is when I am in an area with few bots.... All bets are off when the huge bot trains are storming around

On my mid 2009 mac book pro 15" with 8 gig ram 9.2.3 I saw a performance decrease with more frequent hard stop pauses with everything frozen for a few sec every few min. This is so bad that even with everything set to low the only thing I can do on the thing is craft.

tfraley · May 2014

Same exact issues as above,
It's safe to say that something has changed in the patch. Honestly for a subscription based game, I would expect more support on their Mac client. If you ask me their client seems to more a beta then a release candidate.

MacPro early 2008 3.1
Processor 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 10 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 4096 MB
Software OS X 10.9.3 (13D65)

SamWale · May 2014

Good to know, let's hope they see this post.

I've tried using the in-game Customer Support function but can't get past the loading screen...

Moonraker · May 2014

tfraley wrote: »

Same exact issues as above,
It's safe to say that something has changed in the patch. Honestly for a subscription based game, I would expect more support on their Mac client. If you ask me their client seems to more a beta then a release candidate.

MacPro early 2008 3.1
Processor 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory 10 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 4096 MB
Software OS X 10.9.3 (13D65)

I should point out again, that you are using an unsupported Mac for ESO, so just to bear that in mind when forming opinion on just how the client performs for your Mac. Add to that the fact you are using a PC graphics card unsupported by Apple it adds further layers of potential issues.

Not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that something happened to the client to degrade it so FPS drops given that actually the client has been tweaked down in textures which has the opposite effect. And there is strong anecdotal evidence that FPS drops, lag etc. are occurring on both clients and more likely due to server side issues from reading those threads and on reddit

Moonraker · May 2014

SamWale wrote: »

Good to know, let's hope they see this post.

I've tried using the in-game Customer Support function but can't get past the loading screen..

Sounds like it is unable to connect to the support sites. When I connect (works fine here just tested) it connects to some rightnowtech.com servers, RightNow being the CRM system ZOS use for support, like;

TCP 192.168.1.10:49496->zosen-ssl.rightnowtech.com:https (ESTABLISHED)
TCP 192.168.1.10:49502->vipacsgb01.rightnowtech.com:https (ESTABLISHED)

Have you opened up the ports on your router as recommended?

WHAT PORTS DO I NEED TO OPEN TO ACCESS THE GAME?
Updated 04/30/2014 10:08 PM Published 02/15/2013 07:46 PM
To best access The Elder Scrolls Online, players should configure their routers to open the following outbound ports:

TCP / UDP Ports 24100 through 24131
TCP / UDP Ports 24500 through 24507
TCP / UDP Ports 49100 through 54000

source
The later ones appear to be covering the CRM Help.

Sometimes it takes a while or rarely for me wont connect but tat was a while back at launch.

I can connect without issue here.

You may want to open a new thread as this is a separate issue.

johngalt · May 2014

Moonraker wrote: »

I should point out again, that you are using an unsupported Mac for ESO, so just to bear that in mind when forming opinion on just how the client performs for your Mac.

You say this on a regular basis when anyone mentions they have a dual-cpu Mac. I'm not sure if you have read statement: "I can't get ESO to run on my Dual-CPU Mac Pro". All of us here are not having that issue; especially considering the issue effects machines with more than 8 cores.

The fact of the matter is that, as of the v1.1.2 patch, multiple people in this thread have had issues with dropping FPS. There are also people with similar issues.

Moonraker · May 2014

johngalt wrote: »

Moonraker wrote: »

I should point out again, that you are using an unsupported Mac for ESO, so just to bear that in mind when forming opinion on just how the client performs for your Mac.

You say this on a regular basis when anyone mentions they have a dual-cpu Mac. I'm not sure if you have read statement: "I can't get ESO to run on my Dual-CPU Mac Pro". All of us here are not having that issue; especially considering the issue effects machines with more than 8 cores.

The fact of the matter is that, as of the v1.1.2 patch, multiple people in this thread have had issues with dropping FPS. There are also people with similar issues.

I keep saying it because it is plain that ZOS do not currently support dual CPU Macs as they state. So whether it can work or not, doesn't mean that they will work correctly and without issue due to specific problems related to using a dual CPU computer and several of the reports related to this do use them. Hence why I post to remind players of that.

One of the commonalities from the reports here are the use of dual CPU Mac Pros and older Macs. Not exclusively but one.

It is hard to say whether it may be a Mac specific issue or not because the same problem is also reported for the PC client and there are know server issue which cause lag, fps drop, rollbacks, issues in PvP especially, memory issues etc. currently. Trying to identify one or more as the source of this is not straight forward.

There may be an issue specific to the Mac client after update 1.1.2 to some Macs (I never have this problem myself for example) but it is not clear why that would be the case from the changes likely to have been made which reduced texture quality in fact to do the reverse in raising performance and extending time between crashes (poorer visual quality is a side effect of that and separate discussion)

There should hopefully be some change/s in next patch next week so perhaps we can monitor and see if it continues after that for those it effects.