Black Screen Launch Solution

[treyra]

I saw that a lot of people seemed to have the same problem I was encountering, with the game would invariably launching to a black screen and becoming unresponsive. Validating the game files always results in one file needing to be reaquired, and restarting doesn't help. None of the other solutions seemed to work, so I wanted to post what worked for me. Running on windowed mode!

Obviously, if you can't launch the game, you can't get to the graphics options. But you can change the game settings manually if the game has at least gotten to that black screen.

1. Find the locationof the settings file. By default it should be in Documents/My Games/Age of Empires 3/Users3
2. Open NewProfile3.xml using a txt editor
3. Search window, there should only be one hit
4. Make sure that setting line reads:
<Setting Name="optiongrfxwindowmode">true</Setting>
5. Save the file, hopefully the game launches now.

[Belmakor0707]

Alternative solution.
I also had the black screen problem, tried everything from re-installing,compatibility, changing screen resolution, windowed mode, installing/activating direct play and verifying game cache... In the end it was a file called msxml4 that I needed (which I figured out by trying to launch the game from the .exe file in my steam folder instead of through steam). I downloaded this from Microsoft's website. I needed the msxml4 service pack 3. Would like to know if this worked for you guys as well.

[treyra]

Interesting, I have several variants of that file in a folder labled msxml, so it looks like that wasn't the cause of my problem. Maybe the black screen launch can be caused by several unrelated issues? Or maybe my msxml4 file is corrupt, but windowed mode worked around it? I guess in the long run as long as it starts and is playable, that's what matters.

[Calhoun]

If you don't want to destroy your performance by running in Windowed Mode, then you can force the game to run OpenGL instead of Direct X by setting Launch Options to the following (right-click game in the library and click properties):

-force-opengl

[eduvasques]

It works for me. Thanks.

Originally posted by treyra:

I saw that a lot of people seemed to have the same problem I was encountering, with the game would invariably launching to a black screen and becoming unresponsive. Validating the game files always results in one file needing to be reaquired, and restarting doesn't help. None of the other solutions seemed to work, so I wanted to post what worked for me. Running on windowed mode!

Obviously, if you can't launch the game, you can't get to the graphics options. But you can change the game settings manually if the game has at least gotten to that black screen.

1. Find the locationof the settings file. By default it should be in Documents/My Games/Age of Empires 3/Users3
2. Open NewProfile3.xml using a txt editor
3. Search window, there should only be one hit
4. Make sure that setting line reads:
<Setting Name="optiongrfxwindowmode">true</Setting>
5. Save the file, hopefully the game launches now.