GAME INFORMATION
- GAME BUILD #: Steam Build ID
24094652 - GAME PLATFORM: Steam
- OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 11 Pro
ISSUE EXPERIENCED
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition silently exits before the splash screen whenever my physical MediaTek Wi-Fi 6E MT7922 160MHz Wireless LAN Card is enabled during game startup.
The behavior is reproducible:
- MT7922 enabled and connected → game exits before splash
- MT7922 enabled but disconnected from Wi-Fi → game still exits before splash
- MT7922 disabled → game launches normally
- MT7922 re-enabled after the game window appears → game continues running normally with network access
AoE2DE_s.exe starts, remains running briefly without displaying a window, then exits. No normal crash dialog appears.
The process has been observed exiting with code 300.
System details:
- GEEKOM A8
- AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS
- AMD Radeon 780M
- MediaTek Wi-Fi 6E MT7922 160MHz Wireless LAN Card
- Hardware ID:
PCI\VEN_14C3&DEV_7922&SUBSYS_59111A3B - Current Wi-Fi driver:
3.5.0.1380 - Previous Wi-Fi driver:
3.4.0.1329— same behavior
A manual process snapshot taken while the game was stalled showed the main thread in Windows networking components including IPHLPAPI.dll and nsi.dll. This was a manual snapshot, not a crash dump, so I am including it only as a diagnostic clue and not as proof of the root cause.
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
- 100% of the time / launches (ALWAYS)
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:
-
Enable the MediaTek MT7922 Wi-Fi adapter.
-
Launch Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition from Steam. The Wi-Fi adapter may be connected to a network or completely disconnected.
-
AoE2DE_s.exestarts, but no splash screen or game window appears. The process eventually exits and Steam returns to the Play button. -
Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator and disable the physical Wi-Fi adapter:
Disable-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi" -Confirm:$false
-
Launch AoE II DE again from Steam.
-
The splash screen appears and the game launches normally.
-
Once the game window appears, re-enable Wi-Fi:
Enable-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi" -Confirm:$false
- The game continues running normally and network connectivity returns.
EXPECTED RESULT
AoE II DE should launch normally while the MediaTek MT7922 Wi-Fi adapter is enabled, regardless of whether the adapter is connected to a wireless network.
IMAGE
There is no crash dialog or visible error during the original failure because the game exits before displaying the splash screen.
GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)
Not applicable. The failure occurs during application startup before the game reaches the main menu.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Troubleshooting already completed:
- Steam file verification
- Complete uninstall/reinstall of AoE II DE
- Fresh configuration/profile testing
- Steam Cloud testing
- Wi-Fi connected vs. disconnected
- Phone hotspot testing
- AMD graphics driver update
- Visual C++ Redistributable repair
- Steam Overlay on/off
- Windows Defender exclusion test
- Windows clean boot
- Recent Windows update rollback testing
- Steam Client Beta
- MT7922 driver update from
3.4.0.1329to3.5.0.1380
None of these changed the behavior.
I have also submitted this issue directly to Age of Empires Support.