Since Tuesday, the FPS drops in the fantasy MMO The Elder Scrolls Online are a thing of the past. It is now known where the mysterious performance issues originated: An attempt to combat botters and cheaters is responsible.
For weeks, unexplained drops in frame rates caused long or frustrated faces in The Elder Scrolls Online. We have reported several times on how two patches that were supposed to help even worsened the problems at times and how hotfixes fizzled out ineffectively. Players were repeatedly assured in the forums that a solution to the problem was being worked on. Players of TESO as well as Zenimax employees were puzzled.
This led to wild speculation among players about what could be the cause, in which situations the FPS drops occurred, and which configuration was to blame. Only a hotfix early Tuesday morning could resolve the issues. The root of the problem is now also known: Introducing a new security check caused a congestion due to multiple threads overlapping, as several threads attempted to access the same data simultaneously, creating a sort of bottleneck.
In the official forum for The Elder Scrolls Online, the community managers of Zenimax responded to repeated requests and questions from the community on the subject, solved the mystery, and called for understanding. They stated that they are constantly striving to enhance the security of The Elder Scrolls Online to combat botters, cheaters, and spammers. In one of the recent rounds of improvements, they had introduced a security check that interacted with the players’ client in unforeseen ways. In combat-intensive situations (in PvP or raids), this led to frame rate drops for affected players. They thanked the players for their patience and support.
The initial reactions from the community to the forum post from the staff are positive. They wish for this level of transparency at all times and in every situation from Zenimax.
