Video card required for AOE II: DE?

I happily play AOE 2: HD on my laptop as I travel often. It’s just an i5-6200U with integrated Intel 520 graphics. Nothing fancy, but it runs AOE2: HD fine and I host games from steam all the time. I even participated in AOE: DE multiplayer beta with the game running fine on my machine.

As I’m a fan of AOE 2, I’m just realizing that the minimum requirements for AOE 2: DE require a dedicated video card. Will it really not run on my laptop?

The minimum required specs list Sandy Bridge Intel HD 3000, whereas the Intel HD 520 is a later more powerful integrated graphics.

Technically, Age of Empires 1: DE has a higher listed minimum requirements with the Ivy Bridge Intel HD 4000 compared to Age of Empires 2: DE. However, I run it with no lag with the HD 520, (same as you). You won’t have access to 4x zoom though.

Thanks for reply…I received an email from beta program saying my dxdiag didn’t meet minimum requirements. I wonder why:

Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 17763) (17763.rs5_release.180914-1434)
English (Regional Setting: English)
Dell Inc.
Inspiron 5559
1.4.1
UEFI
Intel® Core™ i5-6200U CPU @ 2.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
8192MB RAM
8084MB RAM
14595MB used, 6200MB available
C:\WINDOWS
DirectX 12
Not found
120 DPI (125 percent)
120 DPI (125 percent)
UnKnown
10.00.17763.0001
1
1
Available, with HDCP
Not Supported

-
-
Intel® HD Graphics 520
Intel Corporation
Intel® HD Graphics Family
Internal
Full Device (POST)
Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1916&SUBSYS_06B21028&REV_07
0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER]
No Problem
Unknown
4169 MB
128 MB
4041 MB
1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Not Supported
Internal

Any ideas why they indicate that it doesn’t meet requirements?

I see there is a thread in the insiders forum…lots of people with same issue.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but your video card doesn’t seem to meet minimum requirements as it requires Intel 3000 or better

Intel 3000 is the integrated graphics with Intel Sandy Bridge processors (2011). Intel 520 was introduced as the integrated graphics with Intel Skylake processors (2015). Intel changed their naming convention from thousands to hundreds with Skylake.

Is that the issue? The Microsoft team thinks that Intel 520 was before Intel 3000?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology

2 Likes

Nope. Just me not knowing the difference.

1 Like

I’m wondering about this too. I have an intel 530 and it’s running AOE DE without any issues. I contacted support because I also received a beta rejection due to system requirements that was in my junk bin…

My PC has intel integrated graphics 5500 and AMD R7 265M. Neither of those are powerhouse nor allow me to play multiplayer matches. The frame rate is constantly around 13-18 and sometimes drop to 9 FPS. It is a terrible experience overall. And no, even changing the resolution to the smallest one in settings do not improve frame rate whatsoever. As such, I also wonder which video card can run this game nicely.

game is using like 30% of GPU. People are saying that RAM is the way to boost performance.
I saw a few people commenting that they had a intel graphics 520 and no offboard GPU and they had more benchmark score than me with a gtx750ti and I saw others with a much better GPU than mine getting similar or lower score

Ok. This sounds a bit too random to me. But frame rate will not lie.
How’s your frame rate on GTX 750TI? As for the score, as long as it hits above 1000 to allow me to play online matches, I am fine.

This seams really random. I don’t know if my System would be able to run the game. I have AMD R7 integrated graphics with 512MB Vram… Don’t know fi it would be able to run the game smoothly

There are tests of 1DE on Intel HD 620 and Is playable, and one of the experts say that it should be a similar perfomance in 2DE.

before nov 6th patches I was getting above 1k and was not measuring FPS, but the game was fluid and I haven’t notice any stutter or freezes
After nov 6th patches it asked me for a new benchmark and my score was 955.3, so it looks like I can’t play ranked games. I still played normal 4v4 games with 300 pop and 40 regular FPS. Benchmark was showing 15-18 fps.
I’ll see if I can find the topic where people were commenting on configs, fps and score
edit: can’t find it. It was on the closed beta and we cant access that anymore

Microsoft claims they are archiving it. If they then allow insiders to check those posts later on in some form, it would be great.
On the other hand, this game is about to release in less than 24 hours. Maybe more people can comment on performance issues and share their thoughts. By then, insider posts would not mean that much for us.

It launches in 2h and 24 minutes of this post 11
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