Multiplayer freezes then fast forwards to be synchronous again

Sounds a little like an old issue noted here, if I’m not mistaken. I’ll link you to one of my posts there, but feel free to read up or down from there.

  • I think someone found a correlation with all the actions the AI were throwing at the game (a lot!) as a contributing factor to the old issue back then. And in mid- and late-game it’d get worse because there are more units and actions going on. Not sure if that would be the case now, as I thought that got resolved in a patch, but wanted to mention.

You probably already have the latest drivers for your vid card (if not, maybe try)… but a few other things to try based on comments in that old thread I linked to, which might be easier to try than updating drivers:

  • First off, do you set up your games via the “Single Player” button on the main menu, or the “Multi-player” button? If it is just you playing vs. AI (no human teammates or opponents), then try using the “Single Player” button instead of the “Multi-player” one, if you don’t already. (Using the “Multi-player” button makes the game go through a server, etc., which may be introducing the issue. So, if it’s just you vs. AI, try using just “Single Player” button and see if that works; as you can set up a lobby there to be you vs. AI that way.)
     
  • Reset your router to get a new IP address
    • Not exactly sure how best to do this… but I think this is one way. Feel free to Google/Bing search for yourself:
      • Hit Windows Key and R together. Type “cmd” and hit OK. At command prompt, type:
        • ipconfig /release and press Enter
      • Next, type:
        • ipconfig /renew and press Enter
      • Wait until the DHCP server assigns a new IP address to you
         
  • Try changing graphics settings to anything below “High” (to like Medium or lower). It fixed the issue for some players back then

Disclaimer: I make no guarantees :slight_smile: The above worked for some, but not all.

I know these would just be band-aid solutions, and that was a lot of words, but just trying to help get you issue-free. If any of these work, or something else you do works, I’d be curious to know what

Also, at the very end of that old thread, GMEvangelos locked the thread and posted this:

Good luck!

Maybe see if any of my words above help? And if not, take a look at GMEvangelos’ post I linked to, and if you’re saying you did that, they emailed you back and just referred you to the troubleshooting pages, maybe point them to the long thread I gave above, give your dxdiag info, and point them to GMEvangelos’ post, too – so they have some context and GMEvangelos’ words about how they might want to use an escalation path to reach the devs. Just an idea