During multiplayer games, I will experience lag in which the game is unresponsive or responsive with a delay. (I’ll click and the click won’t register until a second or two later, making it impossible to manage fights or eco.) Sometimes the game will try to speed up to compensate, sometimes it will just get more and more laggy. I continue to have a blue clock next to my name.
When this happens, a process in the background called Desktop Window Manager will thrash and take up max GPU capacity. This is apparently an essential part of the operating system, and has been known to cause trouble with other games. Due to my particular laptop, this process runs on the integrated GPU rather than the dedicated GPU which the game runs on, and there is no way to force it to use the dedicated GPU.
Sometimes, pausing and/or restarting the DWM process will help the problem, but this still takes a minute or two and requires the other team to be nice about it (sometimes they’re not.) Even after the game is paused, I’ll experience lag just trying to type a message in the chat.
I do not know whether or not a thrashing DWM process was related to lag in previous patches. However, the hotfix has definitely made things worse because I fail to get the yellow or red clock which slows down the game and gives my system a chance to catch up.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Join a multiplayer game either through the ranked queue or with a friend (I was able to reproduce it while hosting a 2 human v 2 AI game)
Play for a while, have task manager open on another monitor or open task manager when the lag hits
Note: I am unable to reproduce the problem in singleplayer play, even on large maps with lots of AI. I also have not yet experienced the problem in 1v1 play, although I have not tried very much 1v1. It seems to happen in non-1v1 multiplayer, and unlike “normal” lag, it does not seem to be related to how many units are in the game or how large the game is. It can happen in the feudal age in a 2v2, or not happen until post imp.
GAME FILES
N/A
IMAGE & ATTACHMENTS
It was hard to get a screenshot during all of this because my computer was not very responsive, even typing to the other team while paused or restarting the process in task manager would take a while. However, if I had a screenshot it would show the task manager open with Age 2 DE taking up less than 100% of GPU 1, and Desktop Window Manager taking up 100% or close to 100% of GPU 0.
THINGS I HAVE TRIED
Closing all background programs
Minimum graphics settings
Reinstalling
Playing on just one monitor
Changing power settings so that the PCI bus gets maximum power
Killing the DWM process right before playing (this gives a warning and the process automatically restarts)
Operating System:
Windows 10
i9-9900k 3.6Ghz
64GB DDR4 Corsair RAM 3600
SSD M.2 Hard drive 2TB
2080-TI Graphics card
**Gamertag: “IN THIS VIDEO”
ISSUE
Describe the problem in detail below. Please limit to one issue per thread.
I get consistent issues of 1. significant frame drops 2. stuttering and freezing 3. game lag
This occurs in nearly every online multiple game.
I thought this was only an issue with the previous HD version. I was wrong and this issue still occurs even in the new definitive edtion.
I have a computer with very high specs. My online multiplayer experience with AOE2 DEF is garbage because the game constantly freezes every 5-10 seconds for 2-3 seconds.
When the game freezes and lags then everything quickly speeds up on the screen to catch up.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
List the steps to reproduce the issue... Be descriptive!
Simply launch a game, play online multiplayer and the issues occur. I have no idea how to ‘replicate’ issues that are occuring outside of my control.
GAME FILES
Include a OneDrive or Google Drive link to a SAVE GAME or REPLAY FILE of the game where you encountered the issue.
In the replay below, the game was freezing and stuttering quite a lot throughout:
IMAGE & ATTACHMENTS
Attach a SCREENSHOT, VIDEO, DXDIAG .TXT FILE, or CRASH/GAME LOGS (if relevant).
Game is freezing at the moment in online multiplayer games. This issue had to two of my friends and other online players so it appears to be a common issue right now. This game is dead
I tried some games with UGC. Some worked, but in a game with 20x mod and later in a normal CBA my machine completely got frozen. No answer from any input, so I had to “hard” restart…
No wonder that one gets a round of CBA much faster on HD than on DE…
Thank you all for keeping us informed, everyone! I wanted to acknowledge the spike of reports since the April(ish) update, and to let you know that the team is investigating what might have changed or caused this issue to re-emerge.
At this point, the most helpful information you can provide is information about when it occurs, on what server, and any network information you can provide. If you are willing to go a step further to generate a detailed network log when it happens, please PM me and I will share the necessary steps to generate and send me that information.
Thanks again! I will keep you appraised of our progress as we get closer to a fix!
I am having issues as well. Even if my pc specs are very good, and singleplayer game runs super smoothly, when playing multiplayer I constantly have T(1) input delay. My ping is always in the 40-50 range, my FPS are always stable at 140, but still I have this issue. I tried changing server, playing only vs ai, disabling V-sync, restarting the router, opening the ports on the firewall, reinstalling the game without any result.
The game had been smooth and run well for me a while after the last path ,but since yesterday, the old problem come back again. Multiplayer games delay and lag ,both of player show blue clock,but only me happens. Everything in my screen slow down or even stopped,after one or two sec ,they will speed up and catch up, and the then, just Keep it again and again.
And this issue only in multiplayer game,when I back to vs AI or campaign game, everything fine.
After the hotfix things are much more smooth than before. Still the last few days people are reporting games not starting in multiplayer teamgames. I’ve experienced it myself as well. It has always happened but now its more frequent. Like 3/5 games either cancel right when it says you found a game, or when you have seen your allies and are waiting for the launch. Also people seem to drop more than before.
Boooo. No offence, but the support is non existent.
I have a $10000 gaming PC and the game runs horribly.
There is extreme amounts of stuttering and freezing in the game, but the fps counter says 134.
This has been going on for months. Last month seems the very worst ever.
I am so over this I wish I hated this game and could uninstall it and not care. Problem is, I want to play the game and try and get good at - impossible when the game runs like a dogs backside.
This is not an ISP issue. It’s clearly a game issue. I have the exact same problem and throughout all the history of my gaming this is the only game that has ever produced such a problem. This is happening to many people here. And those are only the ones that actually care enough to go to the official Forum to complain.
They need to rewrite their spaghetti netcode or something there clearly is an issue.
i guess you can’t tell when im being sarcastic. this game has so many issues thats not fixed im surprised people can put up with it after several months.
GAME INFORMATION