Game repeatadly freezes up for a short while during gameplay

Age of Empires III: DE III - Report a Bug
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:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

:point_down: These details are CRITICAL; DO NOT skip them or your issue may not be reviewed.

  • GAME BUILD #: v 100.15.59076.0 P2 (also happened in the previous version)
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11 24H2 (also happened on 23H2)

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

:point_down: DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD.

The game experiences short freezes during gameplay that go away when quickly tabbing out and into the game most of the time. It happens on a 5800x3d and RTX 4070 Super with 32 GB DDR4 Ram and it’s the only game experiencing this issue. I did not happen in the past apart from the past few weeks. The same is true when no mods are enabled and is less likely to happen after a system reboot. There are no programs running in the background aside from Steam. I already tried reinstalling the entire game through Steam with no change.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

:point_down: How often does the issue occur? CHOSE ONE; DELETE THE REST!

  • 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

:point_down: List CLEAR and DETAILED STEPS we can take to reproduce the issue ourselves… Be descriptive!

Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

Play the game, after the PC has been operating for a while

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

:point_down: What was SUPPOSED to happen if the bug you encountered were not present?

No freezes

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

:point_down: ALWAYS attach a PICTURE (.jpg, .png, .gif) or VIDEO (.mp4, YouTube link) that highlights the problem.

:arrow_forward: GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

:point_down: Attach a SAVE GAME (.aoe3Ysav) or GAME RECORDING (.aoe3Yrec) of the match where you encountered the issue. Link it below if using an external file service.

1 Like
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any fixes on this yet?? quite annoying … also getting random freezes… also game closing mid game… happen in skirmish and multiplayer.

CPU: Ryzen 5900x
RAM: 32GB DDR4 @ 3600MHZ
GPU: Nvidia 3070Ti 8GB

GAME BUILD: 100.15.59076.0 P2
GAME PLATFORM: Steam
OS: Windows 11 24H2

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Hi!

I was wondering if you fixed your issue.

I’ve finally found a fix after about 1 week of troubleshooting. your issue was exactly like mine and is probably due to a CPU voltage. do you use any overclock/underclock or have you changed any PBO settings in your bios or have Ryzen Master installed?

let me know. I can probably help you fix yours as well. :smirk:

best of luck

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Hi, thanks for trying to help,

I have a 5800x3d so I can’t OC as these have it disabled, I opted for keeping setting all the performance settings in the BIOS on standard apart from DOCP. Considering it doesn’t happen in any other games at all and it also doesn’t happen after restarting the PC, I kinda rule out a hardware issue. But I’ll look into disabling DOCP as well if it happens again. It has happened way less frequently after installing the latest 2 graphics drivers.

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Why This Issue Occurs

Older games like Age of Empires 3 were not designed to handle modern CPUs with high core counts (e.g., 12 cores, 24 threads). Windows 11 sometimes spreads the game’s workload across too many logical cores, causing inefficient thread scheduling and micro stutters.

By manually limiting the game to specific cores—typically the first few physical cores and their logical threads—we can reduce stuttering and improve performance.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Launch Your Game

  • Start the game (e.g., Age of Empires 3) as you normally would.
  • Ensure the game is running, but don’t close or minimize it yet.

2. Open Task Manager

  • Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
  • Alternatively, right-click the Taskbar and select Task Manager.

3. Locate the Game Process

  • In Task Manager, click on the Details tab (at the top of the window).
  • Find the executable name for your game. For Age of Empires 3, this might be “AoE3.exe” or similar.

4. Change CPU Affinity

  • Right-click the game’s process name (e.g., “AoE3.exe”).
  • Select Set affinity from the menu.
  • A window will appear showing all your CPU cores and logical processors (e.g., CPU 0, CPU 1, … CPU 15).

5. Assign Specific Cores

  • Uncheck the cores that you don’t want the game to use.
  • For best results on a 8-core, 16-thread CPU:
    • Check only 4 Total Threads CPU 0 to CPU 3 (this will use the first 2 physical cores and their logical threads). For some games skipping the CPU 0, CPU 1 so checking CPU 2 to CPU 5 might also give best results.
  • Click OK to save your changes.

6. Verify the Changes

  • Go back to your game and test it.
  • The stutters should now be minimized or eliminated.

7. Optional: Save the Affinity for Future Launches

Unfortunately, Task Manager does not save CPU affinity permanently. To avoid repeating this process every time, you can:

  • Use Process Lasso to automate it.
  • Or create a batch file or PowerShell script to launch the game with the affinity settings.

Hopefully, this solves your problem. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions! :blush:

3 Likes
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thanks a lot for the guide, I didn’t think about setting affinity in games for a decade, lol. Limiting the game to 8 threads instead of 16 fixed the issue completely for me (for now). I’ll keep an eye on the issue going forward, but for now I can rest easy.

2 Likes