Just in the last two days, I been having a very simple, yet very frustrating problem that renders the game virtually unplayable in a competitive manner:
The game consistently lags and stutters every few seconds. Some stutters just feel like I am losing a couple frames, while some occasionally cause the entire game to freeze up for several seconds at a time. This ONLY happens in multiplayer. In singleplayer, my game is buttery smooth. This should not be an issue with my PC, as it is more than capable of running AOE2. (3060 TI, Ryzen 5800x 3D, 32 GB ram, M.2 SSD). I ran a ranked benchmark test just to be sure and my computer scored 1306. It also shouldn’t be an issue with my internet. I have 100 mB/s fiber, and have this stuttering issue even when I have 40 ping to the server. When I tested it with my friend, he was not experiencing any kind of lag while I was getting 5 second stutters and lag spikes.
It should also be noted that I can replicate the issue just by hosting a private multiplayer lobby, and starting the game with a bot and no other real player present. I have played hundreds of games the past several years on this exact setup, and this problem suddenly appeared two days ago.
Things I have already tried:
- Turned all graphics to low
- turned off V-sync
- Lowered my frame rate
- turned off all my mods
- turned off the “record game” option (i dont even know if you can do this for ranked)
- Uninstalled, and reinstalled the game through steam
- verified integrity of game files through steam
- updated my video drivers
- gave my computer several firm kicks
Nothing has worked yet. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this short of reinstalling windows, PLEASE let me know.