Age Of Empires 2 DE
Build: latest 101.101.27906.0 5105673
Platform: Steam
Operating System:Windows 10 2004
ISSUE
FPS dropping to 1-10.
I’ve been trying to fix the low FPS issue for months now. Usually we have a group of 4-6 friends (from the same city) playing multiplayer on Australian servers with 60 ping. Populations are up to 500, but at that number game becomes unplayable. At 250 game is somehow playable with FPS dropping to 10-30. We have computers ranging from Q6600 with 6870 to I7 with 1080. Tested on LAN, same issue. All users experience this issue. CPU usage goes up to 50%, nothing unusual with Ram, disk or internet usage.
Tried most, if not all, recommended fixes for this issue like playing on low graphic options, disabling steam overlay, playing with vsync, etc.
Issue does not occur during single player games. My benchmark score is highest possible.
The drop in FPS happens to people spectating the game or during replay.
Here is the curious thing about this issue that can be reproduced by following steps below. As the armies are being built, FPS is fine, even with 500 units. Problem happens as soon as the armies attack one another. FPS drops to 1-10. As the fighting continues and numbers of units drops, FPS counter slowly recovers back to 60, but the game/animations are still happening as if the game was running at 1-10 fps per second as can be seen in the attached video. Videos was recorded after 500 vs 500 battle, and current population is 37 with FPS counter showing 60.
The larger the army the bigger the drop in FPS. Problem seems to be related to larger armies fighting.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
- Start LAN or Server game with two or more players, both players are HUNS (not having to build houses speeds up creation of the army, but issue happens with any civilization, any unit), 500 population, enable cheats, turbo mode, start in imperial age.
- Both players use cheats to get resources, build 10 stables, build 500 Light Cavalry or Hussars (or any other unit).
- Send both armies to attack one another.
- FPS drops to 1.
- Notice that FPS counter will slowly recover to 60, but game is still jerky and it will remain so.
It is my quiet hope that 20 years after the release of the game, Microsoft, with its trillion dollars in value and 151.000 employees, will finally dedicate some resources and fix this issue, because i love this game, despite it being unplayable.