Framerate Drop on AoE 2 and 3 (including menus) - Recent Issue

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

Game Version:
Age of Empires II DE: 101.101.54684.0 0
Age of Empires III DE: 100.12.47581.0
Platform: Microsoft Store
OS: Windows 10

Issue:
I’ve had Age of Empires 2 and 3 Definitive Editions for a while now, and while I’ve had issues rendering cutscenes in the past the actual game experience has been fine. In the past few days the framerate has dropped in both games (including menus where buttons and commands react about half a second slower than they should. The framerate is about half of what it should be in both games.

Age of Empires I and other games of similar specs on my machine work fine. The only difference that coincides with when the problem started occurring across both games was the Anniversary events (Halloween for AoE2, first anniversary for AoE3).

Sound and mouse movements perform in real time, it’s just the framerate that appears to lag.

The AoE3 event ends in ~6 days, I will update this thread if the performance reverts back to what it was when the event is over. I just wanted to know if anyone else had experienced performance drops even on mid-tier systems?

Reproduction Steps:
There’s not really any steps to reproduce except install the game with the current versions with the events running on a system of similar specs and see if there are any framerate issues.

System Specifications:
Processor: Intel i5-9400 2.9 GHZ 6 core
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 UD
RAM: 32GB
Graphics Card: NVidea GeForce GT 1030

Attempted Steps to Resolve:

  • Restarting the game
  • Running as Administrator
  • Reinstalling Age of Empires III
  • Running a system check on Avast to cleanup files
  • Performing both a Repair and Revert function on the Age of Empires III application
  • Reverting the Game Options back to default (not that my settings were cranked to begin with)

ATTACHMENTS:
Unavailable to new users

2

Hi @rcollrorscarch !

I recommend you to try some stuff:

  1. In steam, Properties → Local Files → Verify Integrity of game files
  2. Unable your mods
  3. Update your windows and Graphic drivers
  4. Delete your user files

For deleting your user files, you should:

  1. Go to C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE or 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.

If that does not work, please contact with support:
https://support.ageofempires.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Let me know if it works!

3

I would also suggest disabling Avast and checking. Third party antivirus software are known to cause lag and longer loading times.

2 Likes
4

[Solved] - Interference Caused By Third Party Portal Software

After trying a number of different things including the steps recommended by both IkoKnight8151 and BonnyMountain91, it turns out that the lag was caused by an application on my machine that connects to my work’s remote desktop (not Remote Desktop Connection but an application that opens a desktop on a shared server)

Thank you both for your suggestions.

EDIT: The third party software causing the issue was Citrix Receiver, even after reinstallation of that product AoE now runs fine.

1 Like
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I am also having the same issue sound and mouse movements perform in real time, it’s just the framerate that appears to lag. And there is no third party app installed on my laptop.

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At first the game was working perfectly. Other games are working only Aoe 3 de is not working.