Performance drop when fighting multiple AI

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

:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

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

  • GAME BUILD #: Mexico Civ Release Build
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

:point_down: DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD.
When playing skirmish with at least 3 AI performance drops to around 16 fps it seems to correspond with when battles are occuring and is irrespective of if they are on the screen or not. FPS will drop even if I am not looking at the battle. Kept task manager open could not see GPU/Memory/CPU maxing out while this happend.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

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

  • 50% of the time / matches I play (FREQUENTLY)

: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:

  1. Create a skirmish match with a large number of AI (at least three)
  2. Use Hard difficulty AI
  3. Play to the point of getting large armies

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

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

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

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

: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
#2

Heey @Druidsbrook, thanks for your report! We’re now tracking this issue.

2 Likes
#3

Hello Ippert,

Thank you so much, let me know if you need any more information.

#4

I believe these performance drops are related to the AI pathfinding (and the process tied to how the ai keeps its army together)

1 Like
#5

I think you are right, once a battle starts perhaps its doing too many calculations? I like to see the AI use clever tactics but not at the expense of playability.

#6

Can confirm to have the exact same issue as described above except that frame rate drops even lower: below 5 FPS when medium-sized battles against only 3 AI players occur.

This problem already exists for some time, but FPS were in a somewhat playable range back then. Just recently it got much worse.

Hope it gets fixed soon as my friends and I like to play vs AI. But, that’s quite impossible under these circumstances. :confused:

#7

Are you playing on steam? Have you tried the update preview? It has a potential fix for this issue, it seems it has worked for me thus far.

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#8

Thanks for your quick reply! Yes, I play via Steam and a friend and I tested out the preview just after you posted your suggestion, @EntombedCurve02. Sadly, we weren’t able to see any improvement. :frowning:

We also assume that this issue might be the symptom of the path finding algorithm since it gets worse the more AI units exist on the map/are involved in a battle.

I might post that issue in an extra thread, but I don’t think it will yield much new information.

1 Like
#9

We tried to play 3 human vs 4 AI but during battles (not particularly large) but the game became unplayable. The biggest frustration was units not responding to commands.

1 Like