Good information! I personally run on a PNY Geforce GTX 760 2GB on mostly ultra (mostly because I toned down the shadows to medium  to maximize fps) and get around 60+ fps. This game seems to be well optimized and for an MMO I am amazed at how gorgeous the graphics and lighting are.

I just recently finally ran my 8800 GT into the ground until it began preventing my PC from even booting.  (I'm amazed the thing lasted as long as it did.)  Currently running a 650 Ti and had settings on ultra throughout the last two betas with no hiccups.  To be fair, I didn't get into massive PvP battles, so I can't give feedback in that area.  Either way, the game feels very well optimized.

You are heaven sent, I've been looking for a post like this for sometime with specifics. Can i either post my PC info here or PM them to you and ask some questions about what i can do to run on Ultra High. I ran it on Medium with no issues but High and Ultra High ran for me but with about 20ish FPS, graphics were stunning but didn't have that crispness. Any help would be appreciated, Hallelujah!

So CPUs and memory.

Let me tackle memory first as its going to be less complicated.  My basic recommendation is you should have at least 4Gb on windows xp and 6Gb on windows 7+ for ESO.  This will allow your system to have healthy memory usage without every becoming cramped for space.  Also you should buy memory which matches the highest speed your motherboard can support.  Right now on Newegg.com Gskill memory has the highest user ratings, but I've also been a big fan of Corsair memory and have never had an major issues with their products.  Again the KEY though is to get the highest speed your motherboard can support, and if that is an "overclocked rating" making sure to properly setup the memory in your motherboard.  For example my two new PCs this year used  G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) and 1 x G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) memory.  Both were overclocked rates and required some additional setup in the motherboard bios.  But while quoted as "overclocked" the memory was designed to run at these rates, and consequently squeezes out an additional 10-20% memory performance at a very minimal cost.  Overall though meeting the proper memory requirements for ESO is your primary concern, but having faster memory will improve your ingame performance by a small margin.

So on to CPUs.  I almost hate to say much about CPUs because we can easily get into a heated debate about AMD vs Intel, questions about what point you have CPU soft capping (where additional CPU power basically becomes moot).  But I'll do my best to outline my thoughts.  First ESO under most conditions will make fair use of 4-5 CPU threads.  This is where having a quad core CPU is important.  Having less than 4 threads will definitely impact your game performance.  Not all 4-5 threads will run at 100% though, so ESO can certainly run on a dual core processes, but you will be taxing your CPU much more by doing so.  Given the option between a 4-6 core CPU, you will probably see a small benefit in having the 2 additional cores, but it may be such a small benefit that it becomes unnoticeable even in general benchmarks of ESO.  Difference between 6-8 core CPUs will probably be non-existent or undetectable running ESO.   As for speed, I would recommend a 3.4Ghz+ processor, again with at least four cores.  The difference between the 3.4 and 4.0 processors in gaming is notable, so if you have the extra money to kick out for core I5 processors or the higher teir 4.0Ghz AMD processors I would recommend the upgrade.  As for newer i7 processors they are the fastest where gaming is concerned and can net a 10-20% performance increase (though I couldn't test this myself in ESO).  But in all likelyhood you should have surpassed 40-50+ FPS in-game with the appropriate video card and a core i5 or high end AMD cpu.  So you should only require an i7 processor if you are trying to achieve 60+ FPS at all times (with the appropriate super powerful video card).

This concludes my general thoughts on CPUs and Memory in reguards to ESO.  If you have any questions about your system or specific hardware feel free to PM me or put your thoughts into this thread.  I just wanted to get some early information out there for people to read based off my findings so far.

Virtual Venom wrote on February 15, 2014

Can i either post my PC info here or PM them to you and ask some questions about what i can do to run on Ultra High. I ran it on Medium with no issues but High and Ultra High ran for me but with about 20ish FPS, graphics were stunning but didn’t have that crispness. Any help would be appreciated, Hallelujah!

Feel free to PM me or post in this thread.  In the thread might be more insightful for others ;-)  But I would be happy to look over your specs and take a guess of what issue you might be encountering.

I should note there is a HUGE difference between low settings and high in ESO.  I cannot understate how beautiful the game is on Ultra high, and how ho hum it is on Low.  The difference between high and ultra high isn't as large (and is mostly just a change in view distance, ambient occlusion of shadows and transparencies, and water reflection quality).  With this said view distance has a significant CPU/GPU impact, but the more notable impact on GPU usage is in being able to support the higher models, shaders and effects in the first place.  Consequently most people will find themselves either stuck on very low (barely able to run the game, stuck on low/medium, or able to run high/ultra.

I'm currently running an i3 2120 dual core 3.3Ghz processor, 8gb of ddr3 ram, and a gtx 650 w/1gb of memory. I was able to run the game on high with no problems or hiccups, but i'm wondering what needs to change to be able to run the game on ultra with a decent fps.

Rhogog wrote on February 15, 2014

I’m currently running an i3 2120 dual core 3.3Ghz processor, 8gb of ddr3 ram, and a gtx 650 w/1gb of memory. I was able to run the game on high with no problems or hiccups, but i’m wondering what needs to change to be able to run the game on ultra with a decent fps.

So your CPU will have four threads with hyperthreading (but only two cores) is going to limit your performance probably 10-20% give or take.  A four core CPU will give you a boost but would probably not allow you to move up to ultra-high.  With this said I suspect your limit between high and ultra is primarily your video card.  I added a section in my post above from something I theorized earlier:

 I’m not positive though how the Nivdia or AMD video cards with 128-Bit memory interfaces are going to run ESO.  I’m expecting these modern ~$150 cards to run ESO at a healthy frame-rate on High.  My assumption is they are going to have some issues on ultra high due to the limited memory interface and lower memory bandwidth.  With this said they might have issues on High too and instead have to move down to Medium or Medium-High settings.

So your report is verifying my theory, which is that a GeForce GTX 650 only has a 128 bit memory interface. and lacks the memory bandwidth to push ESO at ultra high.  With this said you only have a 1Gb model, so I'm not positive if the bottleneck is the memory (1Gb vs 2Gb) or the memory bandwidth 128 bit memory interface vs a higher interface.  Its probably a combination of the two.

If you wanted to upgrade your PC Rhogog, I would personally look at upgrading your video card to something like a $250 the GeForce GTX 760 2GB, this like would fix your issues.  Note any lesser video card would probably not be worth the upgrade since you already have a gtx 650 w/1gb of memory.

I have to say that I was really impressed by ESO's performance.

Why? simple, I played the PvE part of the beta on high settings in a Dual Core E6600 2.4ghz (8 years old), 6gb of memory and a GTX 460.  Well, my GPU is doing all the hard work, with a big bottleneck but the results were awesome.

For Cyrodiil (PvP) I used the low level settings. I can't get 60 fps but is playable :). I will try to update my machine this year, battles on Cyrodiil on high settings with 100+ players on screen would be awesome.

I really think that they did a gorgeous work. One of the best optimization works on a MMO in the last years.

 

Great post Katrisa.

Awesome, I appreciate the info. Hopefully I can afford to pick up that card before the game launches. I don't mean to derail your thread, but how exactly does one get into that line of work? Like what sort of degree would you need to get, and what the starting jobs in that field would be. I ask because i'm a college student not really sure what to major in, but I enjoy all things computer related.

Haha yes >.>

Well, not right now, but maybe soon.  A quad core i7 4770k at 4.6ghz and a 780ti running a bit over 1ghz can maintain over 65fps at 1920x1080 (more typically 75-95 fps) with all graphical settings maxed.  Without further optimization  of the engine, I'm not sure if it's possible to build a machine capable of 5760x1080 with 100fps on ultra.  I suspect at that resolution and ultra even 60 fps as a minimum is beyond reach currently.  3840 x 720 though could be workable for near 100 fps.  I would definitely be interested in your thoughts on where my system is currently bottlenecked and what kind of resolution is possible with 60+ fps.  My systems memory is 32gb at 2400mhz.

What do you think about a Mac? I am thinking of getting the 27" iMac with the following specs:

 

Hardware

• 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X8GB
• 1TB Fusion Drive
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

I am not sure if these translate on a 1:1 basis to a PC as far as performance is concerned. I want to run on ultra graphics with no performance issues whatsoever. Basically, when I'm in Cyrodiil with 200+ people on screen, I would like smooth gameplay with ultra graphics. Is this possible with such a system?

I'll just chime in with an equivalent from the Mac side. I do have a top end iMac and upgraded graphics card but it gives some indication of what you may expect for a similar setup;

System: iMac 27-inch, Late 2013/ 3.4 GHz Intel Core i5/ 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3/ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB/ OS X 10.9.1

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB:

Resolution: 2560 x 1440 (native resolution)

Graphic Settings: Ultra High (Everything On except VSync Off)

In Town (LOTS of people) 40-55 fps

Solo Outdoors/General: 55-65 fps

Dungeons (with 1-4 people): N/A

In comparison playing the PC ESO beta client via Bootcamp with latest Nvidia beta drivers and same settings it was very similar. Some differences in graphic quality due to native OpenGL in the Mac and DX11 in PC but nothing large.

32-bit v 64-bit Client

One other thing that has not been discussed from what I have seen is the fact that both the PC & Mac ESO clients are 32-bit and will only be able to make use of the 4GB RAM/ address space limit that brings. Your point is well made though that additional RAM is not wasted as it allows for some overhead for the OS and any other apps running in the background.

I understand why they went the 32-bit route with the 'supporting 5 year old computers' which is important for potential market. Still, I can't help wondering if we could not have a 64-bit client, at least as an option as WoW has provided now for a few years; given that many computers have more than the 4GB recommended and it all helps performance wise.

Rhogog wrote on February 15, 2014

I don’t mean to derail your thread, but how exactly does one get into that line of work? Like what sort of degree would you need to get, and what the starting jobs in that field would be. I ask because i’m a college student not really sure what to major in, but I enjoy all things computer related.

I don't mind, but I will keep the comment to the below.  If you want to know more than this feel free to PM me ;-)

I study and received my BS in Computer Science.  As for hardware/software performance engineering specifically, I have always had a hobby of benchmarking PCs before starting college.  After I graduated I picked up a random job in observing hardware failure issues and their reports in the companies hardware monitoring software.  But ultimately I just "fell" into performance engineering afterward.  I ended up getting a really weird job offer where the company I current work for needed two people to fill two different jobs.  They could only fill them with a recent college graduate and I was one of the two candidates they were set on.  They literally had both managers in the room for both jobs, explained the jobs to me and then asked which job I wanted (LOL).  It was one of the weirdest and funniest interviews I've ever had.  I picked the job where they did the performance testing and have been in this area of expertise since.

In terms of what I learned in college and before, it gave me the basic understandings of computing, programming, project management, and how to function with team members.  Ultimately for a college graduate employers will look at your internships (I recommend at least one, and preferably two internships for computer science jobs).  Also most employers will be looking for people who are willing to learn and adapt, in addition to the basic language requirements the job at had requires.  As a college graduate you will be hard pressed to get a job which requires x years of experience, and you will be somewhat limited to entry level computer jobs (but these vary greatly and offer all kinds of different opportunities).  Computer science is a great degree for a wide variety of jobs and its a field I really enjoy working in every day.

Katrisa wrote on February 15, 2014

Virtual-Venom said on February 15, 2014 :

Can i either post my PC info here or PM them to you and ask some questions about what i can do to run on Ultra High. I ran it on Medium with no issues but High and Ultra High ran for me but with about 20ish FPS, graphics were stunning but didn’t have that crispness. Any help would be appreciated, Hallelujah!

Feel free to PM me or post in this thread. In the thread might be more insightful for others But I would be happy to look over your specs and take a guess of what issue you might be encountering.

I should note there is a HUGE difference between low settings and high in ESO. I cannot understate how beautiful the game is on Ultra high, and how ho hum it is on Low. The difference between high and ultra high isn’t as large (and is mostly just a change in view distance, ambient occlusion of shadows and transparencies, and water reflection quality). With this said view distance has a significant CPU/GPU impact, but the more notable impact on GPU usage is in being able to support the higher models, shaders and effects in the first place. Consequently most people will find themselves either stuck on very low (barely able to run the game, stuck on low/medium, or able to run high/ultra.

Alright so here is my info if you would be so kind as to recommend upgrades that would allow me to mod my existing PC and run it on Ultra High.

OS Name Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2100 CPU @ 3.10GHz, 3100 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

Total Physical Memory 7.98 GB

Available Physical Memory 5.72 GB

Total Virtual Memory 16.0 GB

Available Virtual Memory 13.3 GB

Page File Space 8.00 GB

Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by AMD

Graphics Chipset AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series

Graphics Bus Capability PCI Express 2.0

Maximum Bus Setting PCI Express 2.0 x16

Memory Size 1024 MB

Memory Type GDDR5

Core Clock in MHz 700 MHz

Memory Clock in MHz 1000 MHz

Total Memory Bandwidth in GByte/s 64.0 GByte/s

I appreciate the help. I really want to make this gaming experience on ESO top of the line. This is the tower all my equipment currently sits in as well, so that if you recommend anything it will fit inside.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13344

Also, do you need my PSU info? Thanks.

 

Mithron wrote on February 15, 2014

What do you think about a Mac? I am thinking of getting the 27″ iMac with the following specs:

Hardware

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz

16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2X8GB

1TB Fusion Drive

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

I will opt out of my thoughts on Mac!  So I say this for two reasons.  I have never operated a Mac with video games.  I am extremely familiar with UNIX and the underlying performance with server hardware, but not with Video.  Also the bigger issue with a Mac and any game is optimizations.  ESO currently is heavily optimized for ibm based PCs.  It is not optimized yet for the Mac and has many issues with low-mid Mac's.  Many users are having to disable many of the higher settings in order to run appropriately.  Again this has less to do with hardware and more to do with ESO and optimizations.  With this said from my understanding they are working hard to bring Mac performance closer to its PC counterpart.

 

Mithron wrote on February 15, 2014

What do you think about a Mac? I am thinking of getting the 27″ iMac with the following specs:

Hardware

• 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2X8GB
• 1TB Fusion Drive
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

I am not sure if these translate on a 1:1 basis to a PC as far as performance is concerned. I want to run on ultra graphics with no performance issues whatsoever. Basically, when I’m in Cyrodiil with 200+ people on screen, I would like smooth gameplay with ultra graphics. Is this possible with such a system?

You will have no problems at all, save for Higher settings possibly in AvA in Cyrodiil which I have not tested yet. You may need to tweak the settings down a bit in large fights but still, with the native 2560 x 1440 you won't miss much anyhow.

I just posted funnily enough to this thread and also left a comment in the Mac thread in reply to another member who is getting the exact same iMac. Check it out here.

My set up is almost identical to yours and it genuinely runs beautifully with ESO. In Bootcamp also with the PC client though with such a good native Mac port of ESO there will be no need for that route, though great for non-Mac games like Skyrim.

I have only had a chance to play ESO on my crummy laptop, but how well will this system run the game? I am just looking for about what setting low-ultra.

Hardware:

XFX Double D FX-787A-CDFC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-Bit GDDR

Thermaltake TR2 TR-700 700W ATX 12V V2.3 & EPS 12V SLI 

AMD FX-6350 Vishera 3.9GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Six-Core Desktop Processo

WD BLACK SERIES WD1003FZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.

CORSAIR Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desk

Thanks!

Lucky13 wrote on February 15, 2014

3840 x 720 though could be workable for near 100 fps.  I would definitely be interested in your thoughts on where my system is currently bottlenecked and what kind of resolution is possible with 60+ fps.  My systems memory is 32gb at 2400mhz.

Good question.  So I don't have a multiple monitor setup and I haven't done analysis of the effects of having a second or third monitor with ESO.  This is one of those areas where ESO's system and their optimizations is going to have considerable effects on the results.  From your post I have no doubt you understand the issues at hand at the same level I do.  From my experience with other games and expanding the resolution in the past, you tend to take a smaller hit when expanding the resolution at some point.  But you also seem to hit a power cusp where expanding the resolution more and more lowers your framerate regardless of how much hardware you throw at the problem.  In beta we had reports of people running stable at 100+ FPS on dual SLI setups with i7 processors on some really large monitors.  So I suspect the first requirement for high frame-rates will be SLI setups (with sufficiently large video cards).  At the same time there will be a point where you will reach the practical limits of an i7 processor and expanding resolution.  But again I don't have any setups where I tested these theories. So I can't make a good guess for your question above ;-)

With this said as far as your PC is concerned: A quad core i7 4770k at 4.6ghz and a 780ti running a bit over 1ghz.  For ESO and multi monitor concerns I would guess you would be benchmarked at your video card with the solution being SLI and an additional video card.  With this said SLI and video cards can sometimes result in unpredictable performance, but some people I chatted with were having some crazy high frame-rates with SLI being the key which raised them above others results.

 

Katrisa wrote on February 15, 2014

Lucky13 said on February 15, 2014 :

3840 x 720 though could be workable for near 100 fps. I would definitely be interested in your thoughts on where my system is currently bottlenecked and what kind of resolution is possible with 60+ fps. My systems memory is 32gb at 2400mhz.

...In beta we had reports of people running stable at 100+ FPS on dual SLI setups with i7 processors on some really large monitors...

Thanks for the information! Do you remember the monitor resolutions?  Was it a 2560x1440?

Blauz wrote on February 15, 2014

XFX Double D FX-787A-CDFC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-Bit GDDR

Thermaltake TR2 TR-700 700W ATX 12V V2.3 & EPS 12V SLI

AMD FX-6350 Vishera 3.9GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Six-Core Desktop Processo

WD BLACK SERIES WD1003FZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gbs 3.

CORSAIR Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desk

You should be able to run Ultra high comfortably over 30-40 FPS.  The second computer I built has specifications very close to this and we ran it at Ultra high all the time..

NOTE for everyone, when I say Ultra high I'm talking about the DEFAULT ultra high settings.  The default ultra high settings only set the view distance to 62 out of a maximum of 100 and a water reflection quality of medium vs high.  To run with a 100 maximized view distance you may need a larger CPU/video card than my estimates.  Note most people won't notice the difference between view distances over 62.  I had to run an explicit test to actually see how it effects the game.  Some people will notice a pop at 62 (way off in the distance) and will prefer a higher setting.