Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Crashing at Startup, Won’t Launch, or Lags

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is the newly launched real-time strategic video game that is available for Windows, Mac platforms. Though the game has remastered graphics and music with an improved content to play, it has received mixed reviews on Steam for the PC version. Needless to say that most of the reviews also based on gaming stability or performance which seems quite buggy as of now. Here we’ve provided the steps to fix Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Crashing at Startup, Won’t Launch, or Lags issue.

There is no doubt that almost every video game comes for the Microsoft Windows platform but plenty of them also comes with multiple bugs and errors for the PC users which isn’t expected. We really can’t deal with it but we can surely try out multiple possible workarounds below in order to quickly resolve most of the problems by ourselves which is a great thing. Additionally, we can also assume that over the few patch updates in the future, most of the bugs will be fixed.

Why Does Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Keep Crashing?

As mentioned, we can try out multiple solutions below, it’s the first preference to understand which reasons can be the source of the crashing problem at startup. Here we’ve pointed out some of the primary reasons behind startup crashing of PC games.

  • It can be possible that your PC configuration isn’t meeting the system requirements of the game. In this case, check out the minimum and recommended system requirements below for this game understand better.
  • Maybe some glitch or cache issue is causing the startup crashing problem on the PC. In that scenario, restarting your computer will do the job.
  • Either the game files are corrupted or missing during the downloading process or installation.
  • Ensure that you’re not using an outdated Windows build or graphics driver version.
  • Maybe the DirectX version is outdated or it isn’t compatible with the Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 11.0 GPU.
  • The Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition game or the client is outdated.
  • Chances are that some of the background running apps eating too much CPU/Memory which reduces system performance and the game starts crashing.
  • It’s also possible that the Antivirus software or the Windows Firewall protection is blocking the game files to run properly.

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Crashing at Startup, Won't Launch, or Lags

Minimum System Requirements:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 version 18362.0 or higher
  • Processor: Intel i3-2105 @ 3.1GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 973 with an average CPU Passmark score of 3735 or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GT 430, Radeon HD 5570, or Intel HD 4400 with an average Passmark G3D Mark of 570 or better
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 42 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 2 GB VRAM

Recommended System Requirements:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 version 18362.0 or higher
  • Processor: Intel i5-3300 @ 3.0GHz or AMD FX-8350 or equivalent with an average
  • CPU Passmark score of 4100 or better
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 980 or Radeon R9 Fury or equivalent with an average Passmark G3D Mark of 9500 or better
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 42 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 4 GB VRAM

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Crashing at Startup, Won’t Launch, or Lags

Now, without wasting any more time, let’s jump into the steps below. Keep in mind that both the Nvidia and AMD graphics drivers are well optimized for the Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition game. So, if in case, you haven’t updated your graphics driver yet, do this first.

1. Update Graphics Drivers

If you’re using the Nvidia graphics card then update the GeForce Experience app on your PC from the Nvidia official site here. But if you’re using the AMD graphics card on your system, then update the latest AMD Drivers from here.

2. Disable Steam Overlay

  • Open Steam on your Windows.
  • Head over to the Settings> Click on the In-Game
  • Click on the checkbox to disable “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game“.
  • Once the checkbox mark is removed, click on OK.

3. Adjust Discord Settings

  • Launch Discord > Click on User Settings.
  • Select Voice & Video from the left sidebar.
  • Scroll down a bit and click on the Advanced.
  • Next, disable OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco System, Inc.
  • Then disable Enable Quality of Service High Packet Priority.
  • Now, go to Overlay.
  • You can also turn off the in-game overlay.
  • Next, head over to Appearance.
  • Go to Advanced.
  • Disable Hardware Acceleration.
  • Once done, restart the system.

4. Adjust Nvidia Control Panel Settings

  • Click on Adjust image settings with preview under 3D settings.
  • Select Use the advanced 3D image settings.
  • Next, launch the Nvidia Control Panel.
  • Click on Manage 3D settings> Go to Global Settings.
  • Additionally, you can also adjust some of the other options:
    • Disable Image Sharpening
    • Enable Threaded Optimization
    • Use Maximum Performance for Power Management
    • Turn off Low Latency Mode
    • Set Texture Filtering Quality to Performance mode

5. Change AMD Control Panel Settings

  • Go to Global Graphics.
    • Turn off Radeon Anti-Lag
    • Turn off Radeon Boost
    • Use Application settings for Anti-Aliasing Mode
    • Set Anti-aliasing Methodto Multi-sampling
    • Turn off Morphological Filtering
    • Disable Image Sharpening
    • Turn off Anisotropic Filtering
    • Use Performance mode for Texture Filtering Quality
    • You can also enable Surface Format Optimization
    • AMD Optimization for the Tesselation Mode
    • Wait for V-sync– Turn it off
    • Use AMD optimization for the Shader Cache
    • Disable OpenGL Triple Buffering
    • Turn off Maximum Tesselation Level
    • Set Graphics for the GPU Workload
    • Turn off the Radeon Chill
    • Disable Frame Rate Target Control

6. Verify Game Files via Steam

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition gamers on Steam client can follow the below steps:

  • Open the Steam Library by logging into the account
  • You can find the Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition game there
  • Right-click on the game and click on Properties
  • Select the Local Files tab
  • Then click on Verify Integrity of game files
  • Wait for the process and then restart the game to check whether the issue has been fixed or not

7. Uninstall Recent Windows 10 Update

A couple of days ago, Microsoft has released a new update for Windows 10 with KB4535996. So, this particular cumulative update for Windows 10 is quite buggy and causing so many errors or problems.

  • Go to Start menu > Click on Settings
  • Next, go to Update and Security
  • Click on View update history
  • Now, if you can see that there is an update having KB4535996 has been already installed. Make sure to uninstall it.
  • Here you will see the Uninstall updates option on the top of the page.
  • Click on it and select the mentioned cumulative update version.
  • Right-click on it > Select Uninstall.
  • It may take some time to delete that update and your system may restart automatically.
  • Have some patience and you can also manually reboot your Windows PC (if required).

8. Remove Temporary Files

  • Press Windows key + R on your keyboard to open the RUN program.
  • Now, type %temp% and press enter.
  • You will get a bunch of temporary files on a page.
  • Select all files by pressing Ctrl + A on the keyboard.
    Next, press Shift + Delete on the keyboard to remove all the files.
  • Sometimes some of the temporary files can’t be deleted. So, leave them as it is and close it.

9. Set Default CPU and Graphics Speed

As most of the users always want to use ultra-high performance from the CPU and GPU from the very first day. So, most of the users either buy an overclocked version or manually increased the overclocking speed. So, if you’ve also overclocked your GPU speed and after doing that you’re experiencing bottleneck or lagging or crashing related issues, just set it to default mode.

You can also use the MSI Afterburner tool or Zotac firestorm application in order to lower the clocking speed. Once done, you can run the Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition game to check whether it’s crashing at startup or not.

That’s it. We hope this guide was useful to you. You can comment below for any queries.

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