Players that have experienced ESO on X Box Series X and Playstation 5 are probably familiar with some of the game’s new graphical upgrades which began appearing with the Blackwood Chapter release for those consoles. This was known as ESO Console Enhanced and included a full upgrade to 60 FPS via a performance mode, increased Draw Distance, higher resolution textures, improved Reflections and more.

Many of these features were available on PC prior to the update, but some (such as Screen Space Global Illumination) went live for the first time with the Blackwood Chapter release. For PC players, these new settings (TAA, Circular and Smooth depth of field, LSAO and SSGI, grass draw distance) have quietly been rolling out over the last year, as well as the new “Maximum” graphics quality setting, which turns them all on. Players are encouraged to check out these new features since they are still “opt-in” settings on PC in order to not disrupt GPU performance.

Dynamic Resolution Scaling

With Update 31, ESO is enabling dynamic resolution scaling for performance mode on Xbox Series X|S and PS5, which steps resolutions up and down based on performance metrics. For Series X and PS5, the dynamic resolution will scale between 1080p and 2160p (4k), while Series S will scale between 1080p and 1440p.

• Players on Series X should be running at or very close to 4K at 60fps in performance mode in most situations.
• The ability to scale down resolution to 1080p in high-intensity situations (Cyrodiil, anyone?) should prevent dropped frames.

New HDR Mode

A new Hue-Preserving HDR mode is coming to ESO with Update 31 as well. This very closely matches the look of ESO in SDR while also taking advantage of the increased range.

If you prefer the way ESO looks in HDR right now, this will remain an option. To do so, you will simply toggle the new HDR Mode setting from Default to Vibrant.

Multithreaded Rendering Beta (PC)

The launch of ESO on next generation consoles brought many improvements to render threading in order to achieve 60fps within the previously mentioned Performance Mode. In Update 31, ESO is bringing that render multithreading tech to PC via a new opt-in beta setting. For those of us who are CPU limited while playing ESO (most of us), this setting should improve your frame rate.

Players trying out these new features are encouraged to send Feedback and note any issues that arise, especially in combination with add-ons.

Update 31 arrives on PC/Mac and Stadia on August 23, and on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on August 31.