Rhythmic pauses/stutters in single player mode with associated drop in GPU usage in task manager

Age of Empires II: DE II - 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 #: 101.101.44725.0 6115729
  • **GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • **OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10

:arrow_forward: Rhythmic pauses/stutters/freezes

:point_down: My game will freeze every few minutes while playing single player games (campaign/RM) where the game freezes for up to five seconds, although I can still move the cursor around. Monitoring in Task Manager shows the GPU activity dropping to zero during these freezes. No visible change in CPU activity. I’m running on AMD Ryzen 7 3750H, GTX 1660 Ti MaxQ main graphics and AMD RX Vega 10 integrated graphics. This issue was only experienced after the January 26th update. I’ve tried changing graphics settings, updating to latest Nvidia drivers, verifying file integrity and reinstalling the game, to no avail.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

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

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

Likely a compatibility issue with my hardware setup, as it seems to be a relatively uncommon problem (although I have seen others mention it). Might be related to the fix for late-game lag.

#2

Same, but I got this problem already since november and I was hoping for the new update.
I tried so many things but had no luck so far…

I read about some cases where the game switches to the integrated GPU or the anti-virus software blocked the game. Possible that this can help in your case.

Some steps from the Support i had to test:

  • Check for Windows updates manually and install all of them

  • Re-install your GPU drivers, if you have recently updated them, try installing the previous version of drivers

  • Disable or uninstall your anti-virus software

  • Uninstall the game, restart your PC then re-install the game to your main drive

  • Make sure that the game uses your external GPU instead of your on-board graphic card
    (read the last part behind the following link)

  • Tips for Optimizing your Age of Empires Experience – Age of Empires Support