Problems with game stuttering (most reproducibly when units are trained)

[Spencerinnd]

GAME INFORMATION

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• GAME BUILD #: Version = 101.103.16877.0 #(147949)
• GAME PLATFORM: Steam
• OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11

ISSUE EXPERIENCED

^{DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL (below). LIMIT TO ONE BUG PER THREAD.}

I have been experiences small stutters while playing (singleplayer vs AI or in scenario editor), often when units spawn, or sometime I’ve noticed maybe after a building is built a farm depleted. I don’t think this is normal as I haven’t noticed it over a few years of playing.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

^{How often does the issue occur? CHOSE ONE; DELETE THE REST!}

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

REPRODUCTION STEPS

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Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Start a game of AOE2
2. Play normally
3. Some percentage of the time the game will stutter as units are created or possibly when other game actions occur like completing a building construction or being attacked by enemy.

EXPECTED RESULT

^{What was SUPPOSED to happen if the bug you encountered were not present?}

Units would spawn and the game would continue to run smoothly

IMAGE

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

Example in scenario editor - https://streamable.com/wzxo5d
Notice how the game stutters when the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th scout are trained. You can tell by watching moving units or the flags on the walls. It even happens when a unit is while set to spawn in the building.

GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

^{Attach a SAVE GAME (.aoe2spgame) or GAME RECORDING (.aoe2record) of the match where you encountered the issue. Link it below if using an external file service.}

Filebin | f94tixjdhqd3w98s

I can’t attach the file because I’m a new user to the forums. In this rec, the game stutters at the start when the elephants attack my outposts and for several of the villagers I train.
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Extra info and troubleshooting I’ve tried.

I am playing on modern hardware (i7-12700k, 4070 super, 32gm ram, 1440p monitor 144hz)

Things I have tried with little success:

Turn all mods off
Reinstall game
lower graphics settings
update graphics drivers
play without network connected
disable nvidia overlay
Close other applications
probably some other things I am forgetting

[Darkness01101]

Same here, even when logged out of XBox. You’re welcome to try logging out of XBox to see if that helps, as it has helped some players… (if you haven’t tried already)

A couple similar threads/reports:

Freezes after patch

GAME INFORMATION GAME BUILD #: 101.103.10863.0 #141935 17957298 GAME PLATFORM: Steam OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11 ISSUE EXPERIENCED This is about my experience in single player (skirmish). So the lag is not ping based. I also have a powerful though older generation desktop PC that should easily run the game: 32GB RAM, i7 8700K, RTX 2080 TI. So the issue is not network nor hardware related AFAICT. Before the patch it would occasionally happen that I’d get a hang but…

Short freezes since april patch

Hi everyone since the april patch was released, I have been experiencing several short freezes every game. it’s usually a split second but it is quite annoying, as you can surely imagine. I have turned off all of my mods and I have lowered my graphics settings a bit but neither had any noticable effect. does anyone have an idea of what might cause this or how I can find out what causes it? the game isn’t crashing, so I assume there is nothing like a crash log or anything comparable I play th…

[cmfrydos]

I think these are different from the Xbox freezes, which happen more periodically, while these are more like micro stutters that occur sometimes when units spawn.

The long Xbox freezes went away when I signed out of Xbox. However, I can definitely see micro freezes on my machine when playing the replay (though they’re much shorter than in the video, (Ryzen 5950X, 32GB Ram, RTX 3070, Samsung 990 Pro)).

I didn’t notice any micro freezes in normal matches. I mostly play multiplayer, and usually, there’s someone with a slow PC, so the whole game starts to stutter (lower ticks per second), which I guess hides this particular stutter when units spawn.

Bottom line: There appear to be two different kinds of freezes:

1. Long, periodic ones (cause unknown), which only seem to affect players logged into Xbox.
2. Micro freezes when units spawn.

[Spencerinnd]

I’m not sure if i can edit the post, but here is a more permanent link to the video example and the replay
(new user so it’s a bit difficult to attach things)

Aoe2 Stuttering

[Spencerinnd]

replay: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gtvcAL7AqVhnJOGQa32CiBdisrxbpOnE/view?usp=drive_link

[MaJoR_Kd]

Summary of Issue: Persistent Micro-stutter (Jittering) in AoE2:DE

User experience:

• Regular micro-stutter/jitter during gameplay and during playback of recorded games.
• Issue occurs offline and online, and is not dependent on FPS (game runs at high framerate).
• No internet-related causes - issue persists even in recorded games.

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System & Configuration:

• OS: Windows 11 Pro (Build 22631 - fully updated)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K (6 cores, 12 threads @ 3.70GHz)
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS X HERO
• Display: 165 Hz G-Sync monitor
• GPU settings optimised via NVIDIA Control Panel:
  • CUDA set to GPU
  • OpenGL rendering GPU forced to discrete GPU
  • Power mode: Prefer maximum performance
  • V-Sync: Off (but also attempted On, Ultra and Fast)
  • Low Latency Mode: Off (but also attempted On andUltra)
  • Texture filtering: High performance

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Key Observations:

1. CPU Bottleneck Centered on Specific Thread

• Task Manager and Process Explorer show a single thread (e.g., AK::StreamMgr from AoE2DE_s.exe) consistently consuming 6–7% CPU when tasked with multiple unit spawning (using ‘aegis’ cheat to mass produce), spiking far above other threads.
• This thread appears linked to the Wwise audio engine (AK::StreamMgr) used by the game.

2. Inefficient Thread Distribution

• CPU activity seems poorly balanced, with the game not fully utilising available cores.
• This bottleneck is present even when the game is not under heavy load (e.g., during replays with no active user input).

3. GPU Underutilisation

• GPU usage remains low, indicating no graphics bottleneck.
• Confirmed via control panel overrides and system monitoring that the discrete GPU is used correctly.

4. Symptoms Present in Replays

• Since the issue occurs in recorded games, this rules out:
  • Network lag
  • Input-related stuttering
  • Rendering pipeline issues
• Strongly points toward engine-side scheduling/threading issues consistent with latest patch (no notable instances of this happened prior to).

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Conclusion / Developer Ask:

The stuttering/jitter appears to be caused by CPU thread bottlenecking, particularly tied to a single high-priority thread likely associated with audio streaming (Wwise). Despite optimising all known GPU and system settings, the issue persists and appears tied to core engine behaviour.

Request:
Please investigate how audio streaming, thread scheduling, or any recent changes to multithreading may be affecting performance. Offering advanced settings to reduce audio thread priority or improve CPU core usage might help alleviate this issue.

NB: I’ve experienced this issue previously while playing, so I hope it’s something the team can quickly identify and hotfix. It significantly diminishes the overall gameplay experience and has caused multiple games - especially 3v3s and 4v4s - to become unplayable due to desyncs.

[CanineCrown7153]

So, the issue is playing the unit creation sound.

[MaJoR_Kd]

Not quite that simple, unfortunately. The issue seems tied to the triggering of the unit creation sound event, not the actual sound output. Muting audio via game settings, system volume, or even removing the Wwise folder to disable sound entirely has no effect - the performance issue still occurs regardless.

[cmfrydos]

@MaJoR_Kd

Task Manager and Process Explorer show a single thread (e.g., AK::StreamMgr from AoE2DE_s.exe) consistently consuming 6–7% CPU

I noticed the same thing yesterday when checking AoE2DE with Process Explorer and ProcMon, they showed high resource usage in AudioKinetic (AoE2DE_s.exe!AK::StreamMgr::SetFileLocationResolver). But I’m not very experienced with those tools, so take it with a grain of salt.

Unfortunately, turning the sound volume to zero didn’t help. I suspect replacing the unit spawn sounds with short silent files could confirm if that’s the actual problem, but I haven’t tried that myself.

There was a recent issue where some mod sounds suddenly stopped playing, which got fixed recently. Maybe one of those changes introduced this new performance issue.
See: Sound Mods Result in Missing Sounds

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@MaJoR_Kd

CPU activity seems poorly balanced, with the game not fully utilising available cores.

Keep in mind, AoE2 and the Genie engine heavily depend on single-core performance. A complete rewrite could lead to big performance improvements, but due to high development costs and limited financial incentives, that’s unlikely to happen.

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I also noticed continuous file access to the .rec file, but I have a fast SSD, and even putting it on a RAM disk didn’t resolve the issue, so I can rule that out. (Though buffering the file in memory might help improve recorded game playback performance on older HDDs.)

[cmfrydos]

@Spencerinnd

here is a more permanent link to the video example and the replay
https://youtu.be/NeQCUlbo3Uk

Here it is for comparison on my machine. It’s less noticeable, but still present:

I might be mistaken, but it seems to me this issue occurs especially when sounds overlap or play closely together, though that’s just my impression.

[MaJoR_Kd]

I hadn’t tested ProcMon but got the same AK::StreamMgr activity in Process Explorer, and it’s consistently eating up CPU, even with no active gameplay.

As mentioned in my last post, ruled out sound output as a cause by muting everything (in-game and system-wide), and I even removed the Wwise folder entirely, but this still didn’t prevent the load, which suggests it’s not just ‘playing’ the unit creation sound, but possibly something deeper in how sound events are being handled or queued.

I hadn’t thought about replacing the spawn sound files with silent ones, though. That might be worth testing just to isolate whether it’s linked to the issue. Your point about recent mod-related sound fixes possibly introducing new overhead is also interesting.

Definitely feels like something changed in how the engine handles sound or file access recently, and it’s having a visible impact on CPU behaviour, especially during larger matches or replays that include regular unit spawning.

[MaJoR_Kd]

If you want to see some heavy jitter, try this in a Deathmatch (Post-Imperial) game: use the aegis cheat to build multiple castles instantly, then select all and hold Shift and queue batches of unique units from all of them in quick succession (with the aegis cheat left on). You can also use the ninjaconnor cheat to hugely increase resources and keep production going. This is useful for reproducing the issue and assessing CPU load, especially if you’re running a stack trace to pinpoint the thread responsible for the bottleneck.

[cmfrydos]

We might be on the wrong track.

AoE2DE_s.exe!AK::StreamMgr::SetFileLocationResolver somehow accesses the replay files deep within its stack trace, either by writing during gameplay or reading during replay playback. Don’t ask me why, maybe AudioKinetic (AK) is used for more than just audio.

(It always writes to rec.aoe2record, even when recording is explicitly disabled in both the game and match settings, which is an issue on its own.)

When I start a game and replace rec.aoe2record with a symlink to NUL: (or make the file read-only), AoE2 crashes:

C:\Users\User\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE\76561198103155319\savegame>mklink rec.aoe2record NUL:
symbolic link created for rec.aoe2record <<===>> NUL:

So, I think I’ve found something, but am unsure how to proceed. I need somehow a driver that accepts writes without doing anything.. (Edit: On second thought, I don’t think file access is the real issue. I tested it with both a RAM disk and a slow HDD, and it made no noticeable difference.)

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Funnily enough, there’s yet another bug: after that first error, my scenario buildings remain visible behind the main menu.

It appears the game state isn’t being properly cleared when exiting a match.

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So overall, I no longer think the AK thread is the actual cause of the unit-spawn stuttering. Without access to a proper debug build or a performance profiler, trying to pinpoint the issue feels like searching in the dark.

[ReelBigFishBoom]

I don’t have anything to add other than I also experience this stuttering, but I feel like I didn’t used to get it before the April 2025 balance patch / Three Kingdoms DLC.

[cmfrydos]

By chance, I checked the previous game version today and revisited this issue, and the issue is gone:

https://steamdb.info/depot/813781/history/?changeid=M:3062750357974097780

To be precise, I inserted:

download_depot 813780 813781 3062750357974097780
Downloading depot 813781 (5592 files, 1255 MB) ...

which gave me Version 101.103.14579.0 #145651.

Interestingly, the issue still appears in the provided replay, but not when I play a scenario myself. So it looks like the “only” balance patch introduced this new performance bug, and the issue is even captured within the replay file.

Current version (101.103.16877.0 (#147949)):

Previous version (101.103.14579.0 (#145651)):

So, what we (and hopefully the devs) learned today is that a very recent change introduced this particular issue.

[MaJoR_Kd]

Not a single dev comment to this. Really disappointing!

[ReelBigFishBoom]

I have downloaded the July pup, this issue appears to be fixed just on first glance by running the Performance Benchmark, the micro-stutter appears to be gone. My benchmark score however did not increase with the stuttering gone, so I’m definitely getting worse FPS since at least the April patch.

[Spencerinnd]

I just downloaded the July pup and from my 2 minutes of testing the micro-stutter seems to be gone on my end as well. I have no comment about FPS, as I wasn’t keeping track before.

[SkinnyPigSir]

Can confirm this is still happening (Aug 3rd, 2025). Started after the patch in April. Game stutters and freezes for 1-3 seconds when 1+ units are trained and (particularly when released). This becomes noticeably worse when the map is populated in team games. Occurs both in SP and MP.

Logged out of Xbox live and still get random freezes for a few seconds.

Swapped GPU, RAM, performed a clean install on SSD and still nothing. CPU is i7-6700 Skylake GPU is RTX 4070, 32GB. All other games are buttery smooth.

This needs to get fixed, any updates from the devs?

[cmfrydos]

As I understand it (though I haven’t personally confirmed), it is fixed in the PUP preview patch. It might take a few weeks to make it to the actual game, but the good news is that the cause was apparently identified and fixed.