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- Ensure that you’re not using an outdated Windows build or graphics driver version.
- Maybe the DirectX version is outdated or it isn’t compatible with the Direct3D Hardware Feature Level 11.0 GPU.
- The Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition game or the client is outdated.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.

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.