(BUG) AoE2DE_s.exe Application Has Been Blocked from Accessing Graphics Hardware

Age of Empires II: DE II - Report a Bug
1

Game Version:

  • Build (101.101.34223.0)
  • Platform (Steam)

Issue:

I have lost an insane amount of games because of this “AoE2DE_s.exe Application Has Been Blocked from Accessing Graphics Hardware” and random disconnections. I should have you know that this is exclusively to multiplayer. I played some single player games and the game is 100% smooth.

(I will leave the disconnection issue for another bug report as seemingly many users have reported)

Application blocked issue occurs for me in three or four scenarios:

  1. I 100% get this bug when I play with chinese players. All of the game I played against players with Chinese characters in their names, I 100% and always get "AoE2DE_s.exe Application Has Been Blocked from Accessing Graphics Hardware " in my notification panel.

  2. In the middle of the gameplay (1 or 2 games out of 3), DE freezes for a few seconds then my unit movements are speeding up to catch up with time… then freezes for 1 second and boom blackscreen. I can only see the cursor. I press random keys on my keyboard and apparently ENTER key exits the game (not sure why only ENTER key triggers the exit).

  3. Spamming commands and APM freezes the game causing a blackscreen first then I can only see my cursor. So I have to exit the game manually.

  4. I’m not so sure about this but… ALT-TAB while the game is running then ALT-TAB back and keep playing and wait for some blackscreen or crash to happen soon.

I play SC2, LOL, fortnite and ARK survival and i DO NOT get this bug with these games.

Reproduction Steps:

  1. Use Wifi and fire up multiplayer
  2. Install Mods: Small Trees, Advanced Idle Pointer, Huge Number
  3. Commit to playing 5 - 10 games at one session
    2.a. You must be fast at using hotkeys and preferably a good player
    2.b. Match up against Chinese players or a region with higher latency
    2.c. ALT-TAB while the game is running
    (Make sure only 6 GB RAM is installed on your PC)

hardware-access
hardware-access396×1040 56.6 KB

2 Likes
2

Hi!
I have the same problem. Have you managed to solve it?

1 Like
3

I think i solved it but I’m still debugging more so here’s what i did so far:

I disabled all “NVIDIA High Definition Audio” as shown below
nvidia-hdaudio

Then uninstalled my monitor driver for Asus VG248QE so for now i’m only utilizing just the generic one (Uninstall only if the factory website does not have windows 10 drivers):

disable monitor driver

I used MSIAfterburn to lower my clock -50Hz

afterburn
afterburn740×497 95.9 KB

Yesterday I played 4 long games and I did not crash at all. (I played without a grid mod so you might as well do the same)

I will play some more games today and get back here to mark the solution.

4

I played 3 more games today without any crash but unfortunately they did not last too long (less than 30 mins). But so far so good… We’ll see.

5

This is a graphics driver issue. If your graphics driver is outdated or is damaged, then it will through such errors. To fix this issue, I will suggest you to read and follow the fixes given here: Application Has Been Blocked From Accessing Graphics Hardware
It helped me fix the error. I hope it will help you too.