Game stuttering and not playable

[Spacebrake]

Everything from the main menu to gameplay stutters - it's unplayable. I bought this yesterday on sale.

I've tried all sorts of optimisation techniques and nothing works. It seems to have been a big issue a year or so ago.

I have 24gb RAM, Core i7, Nvidia GTX 1660 ti etc. I can play Red Dead Redemption 2 basically on high/ultra graphics.

Any contemporary solutions out there?

[Eaglemut]

Hmm, should work fine on these specs.
One idea I have is to make sure to set SSAA to 100% in the game's graphics options.

[edmarvin]

Mine too. My main PC is a 10850k, 3070TI, 32GB DR4 Windows 11. Opening screens are fine but the main menu and all gameplay is at about 7 fps.

Wife's computer with 3700x, 2070, 32GB DDR4 and Windows 11 plays it just fine.

[Erissar]

Forward your issue to Support, please: https:// support.ageofempires.com/hc/en-us

[French Villager Rush Tori]

Sometimes I lagg and its always because of Windows update doing some bad stuff in background. Your PC should be good enough

[Spacebrake]

Thanks all for the responses, I've sent a request to Support.

[IkoKnight]

Hi CorsairAU!

I hope support can help you. In the meantime, I recommend you to try some stuff:

1. In steam, in AOE3 game, Properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of game files
2. Reinstall the game
3. Unable your mods
4. Uninstall/unable your antivirus
5. Reinstall your graphic drivers
6. Update direct X
7. Delete your user files

For deleting your user files, you should:

1. Go to C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE
2. Copy your user folder to a safe place, it has lots of numbers.
3. Delete the original and open the game again. A new user folder will be created

If this works, then copy back the files from your old user folder. Those files are in the folder

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE\<0>\Savegame, Home cities, Recorded Games and Save games.

Let me know if it works!

[Catalytic]

This may sound odd, but when I run the Windows Compatibility troubleshooter, it suggests that I run aoe3DE.exe on Windows 8 compatibility mode. I tried it. Last few times I've played, I get fewer hangs/freezes and fewer crashes. It'll still let me know when the CPU is overloaded. In Win10, it stops. In Win8 compatibility, it lags, then catches up, so the CPU overload is still there. I haven't been using it all that long, so I think the jury's still out on whether it "fixes" anything for me in the long run. My crashes tend to be rather sporadic, so I may just be getting lucky - I'll keep watching it.

If none of the solutions the devs have suggested work, I'd give this a try and see what happens. It's worth a try if the rest fails, right?

[Spacebrake]

Originally posted by IkoKnight:

Hi CorsairAU!

I hope support can help you. In the meantime, I recommend you to try some stuff:

1. In steam, in AOE3 game, Properties -> Local Files -> Verify Integrity of game files
2. Reinstall the game
3. Unable your mods
4. Uninstall/unable your antivirus
5. Reinstall your graphic drivers
6. Update direct X
7. Delete your user files

For deleting your user files, you should:

1. Go to C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE
2. Copy your user folder to a safe place, it has lots of numbers.
3. Delete the original and open the game again. A new user folder will be created

If this works, then copy back the files from your old user folder. Those files are in the folder

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE\<0>\Savegame, Home cities, Recorded Games and Save games.

Let me know if it works!

Hey there, thanks for your response. Deleting the user file got the game to say this at launch:

"We have measured your PC's performance and have set the optimal graphics settings. You can change these settings in the options menu:

CPU score: Medium
GPU score: Very high"

Unfortunately it's still the same issue - a laggy/stuttering main menu and gameplay. I'm wondering if it's a CPU problem.

I have a multi-core CPU running on a laptop... is that an issue?

[Lightning]

I've had this issue since October and just fixed it tonight. If your using Citrix Workspace for work, it has the "app protection service" by Citrix systems. Disable this service and reboot. AOE3 is now smooth as butter!