Disabling the splash screen

[Punkmunster]

Hi, the Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition splash screen looks bad with no borders. Is there a way to disable it? Thanks.

[Darkness01101]

The poor devs… just can’t win. Splash screen preferences now? Are you referring to the little pop-up card overlay on top of Steam that appears when you first launch the game? Doesn’t look bad, but doesn’t read as a splash screen as well as it maybe could. What about adding a drop shadow to that splash card to give some depth? Or a slight beveled border?

EDIT #1: It’s probably easily customizable, if you have a Paint program. I think I see it here: …\Steam\steamapps\common\AoE2DE\resources_launcher\loading_slash_sml.bmp

EDIT #2: I made this slightly revised image. What do you think? I added a border and applied a slight texture to the image so the artwork isn’t as clean and precise-looking as the game’s banner in Steam, to help differentiate it from that background banner image when launching.

Note: This is a .JPG file so you’ll have to convert it to .BMP so the game recognizes it, if you want to use it. (This forum doesn’t allow me/us to upload .BMP files.)

To convert to BMP:

1. Download my JPG image to your Desktop
2. Launch MS Paint (Windows Key + R > type: “mspaint” without quotes)
3. File > Open my JPG image in there
4. File > Save As a BMP file onto your Desktop
5. Close MS Paint

To get this new BMP image into the game:

1. Exit the AoE2:DE game
2. Make a backup copy of the original “loading_slash_sml.bmp” file I noted in the ‘\steamapps\common’ folder above (in case you want to bring it back someday), and/or rename it slightly (e.g., “loading_slash_sml - Copy.bmp”)
3. Copy/paste or drag & drop my file (which you’ve converted to .BMP) into this Steam folder
4. Make sure my file is named “loading_slash_sml.bmp”
5. Launch the game to see it in action

I can easily tweak the border color/style and/or remove the canvas texture, if desired.

PS: I first tried to do a drop-shadow, but the game won’t let me use a PNG file – which I needed for drop shadow alpha transparencies. PNG files just shows a blank black splash card instead. Since BMPs don’t have alphas, I abandoned the drop shadow idea.

[Punkmunster]

Thanks for youre help and investment in the communauty…

[Darkness01101]

You’re welcome! Did you happen to try this or some solution of your own, Punkmunster? Wondering if it worked okay for you or if you desired a different tweaked look

[Punkmunster]

This looks good. You have done the borders ?

[Punkmunster]

Have to download the jpeg image you posted and convert it to bmp ?

[Darkness01101]

Yes, I did a simplistic border (a dark gold color), but it looked good to me. I kept it simple and toned-down for aesthetic reasons that I liked.

And yes, you’d have to download the image (right-click on it > Save Image As…)

And then, yes, convert to a .bmp file type

[Punkmunster]

I have a problem using the downloaded splash screen… How can i send you a message?

[Darkness01101]

I’m not sure how to message me offhand… but you can post your experience here, maybe others will have the same issue, too. Ugh, just noticed the forum automatically converted my image to JPG, so it’s not a PNG. Sorry about that, I’ll edit my post to say .JPG. It shouldn’t matter, though, you should still be able to download and convert to BMP.

Here’s where you Save As after right-mouse buttoning over image…

[Punkmunster]

The image look pixelated. Perhaps du to conversion to jpeg… And i have Windows Store version of the game witch dosent allow me to find the splash file… Thanks…

[Darkness01101]

Are you sure it’s pixelated, and that it isn’t just the canvas texture I said I applied to it that you’re seeing?

I’ll show you on my end later why I added a texture to it. Can’t until hours from now.
(PS: I can remove that texture, but I just thought it might be neat to have)

I just downloaded the JPG and it looks fine (not pixilated). It’s the exact same size (height and width) as the splash image that appears in Steam, so if you try to zoom in bigger than it is, then that will get more pixilated… since you can’t create addition resolution… but you shouldn’t do that anyways. A one-to-one swap should be fine. At least if you were on Steam…

But therein lies the problem. Sorry if I wasted your time; I didn’t know you were on Windows Store. I don’t know that experience or if those files are editable in the same way as Steam? Or if the splash image is even the same size?

[Darkness01101]

Here’s how my tweaked splash screen looks. You can see here the canvas texture applied to it (not pixelated) so it looks a little different than the crystal clear, non-textured Steam banner across the top of the screen. Otherwise, it looked like pretty much an exact duplicate.

You can also see the subtle border I made.

I didn’t want to edit the original image very much because I didn’t want to change much of what the developer intended – especially since I didn’t know how much you wanted it changed. I was tempted to do/try other things, but I’ll do that some other time for fun if I want to spend more time on it.

I don’t know how your splash screen looks, I’m sorry to say.

[Punkmunster]

It is sad, i cant access the Microsoft Store folder of the game…