Need an eagle or an elifent

[ryanmankie]

@EAGLEMUT @Aizamk

I'm trying to get DE to work on my laptop.

XPS 15 9560:
- CPU: i7-7700HQ Quad-Core
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
- Memory: 16GB

Gameplay (at 8:32 my stables don't seem to even build, also very hard to click on things):


Performance:


I really want to play this weekend or the next.

Last weekend I experimented with software solutions like undervolting with Intel's XTU along with other things in ThrottleStop, but they all just crashed my laptop during games even when undervolting a very small amount.

Now I'm interested in modding the game. I don't have a problem on TAD, and since they didn't change the engine, I imagine it has to do with the graphics and animations.

I found under "C:\Users\ryanmankie\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE\Common\GraphicalProfile.xml" all the performance settings, some of which were available on TAD but not on DE such as "optiongrfxbitdepth". I tried changing all the options, but it didn't improve (not sure if this is the right file). I heard they disabled mods, but I figured this was more of a profile setting.

If modding isn't an option, my last option is buying thermal paste before having to buy new hardware which I'm not interested in.

[Challenger_Marco]

I have i5 8th gen & 8gb ram and runs smooth ,how it's not smooth for you?

[deleted_user]

How did I not crash your game with that 2 hr TR fest. I hope it lagged a lot.

[Mitoe]

Honestly you should be able to run the game fine with that hardware. Maybe your computer is using integrated graphics to run the game instead of your dedicated GPU?

[ryanmankie]

Honestly you should be able to run the game fine with that hardware. Maybe your computer is using integrated graphics to run the game instead of your dedicated GPU?

No, I checked that. I don't think it's about the hardware specs, I think the laptop doesn't have good heat control since it's built so thin.
I think that's causing my laptop to throttle by power and heat (see OP for performance charts).

I figured out that GraphicalProfile.xml does change the game (see OP), but you have to restart the game for those changes to take effect.
I set all the values to false or 0, haven't tested whether that lowers temperatures.

Another thing I tested out was lowering the resolution - 1920x1080 to 1280x720, based on just idle gameplay seems to lower temperatures by 5C, but the game looks quite bad. I have to test this all out under real game scenarios though.

[Mitoe]

Honestly you should be able to run the game fine with that hardware. Maybe your computer is using integrated graphics to run the game instead of your dedicated GPU?

No, I checked that. I don't think it's about the hardware specs, I think the laptop doesn't have good heat control since it's built so thin.

I figured out that GraphicalProfile.xml does change the game (see OP), but you have to restart the game for those changes to take effect.
I set all the values to false or 0, haven't tested whether that lowers temperatures.

Another thing I tested out was lowering the resolution - 1920x1080 to 1280x720, based on just idle gameplay seems to lower temperatures by 5C.

Does your laptop have a fan and do you have any way of controlling the RPM for it?

[ryanmankie]

Honestly you should be able to run the game fine with that hardware. Maybe your computer is using integrated graphics to run the game instead of your dedicated GPU?

No, I checked that. I don't think it's about the hardware specs, I think the laptop doesn't have good heat control since it's built so thin.

I figured out that GraphicalProfile.xml does change the game (see OP), but you have to restart the game for those changes to take effect.
I set all the values to false or 0, haven't tested whether that lowers temperatures.

Another thing I tested out was lowering the resolution - 1920x1080 to 1280x720, based on just idle gameplay seems to lower temperatures by 5C.

Does your laptop have a fan and do you have any way of controlling the RPM for it?

Only thing I tested was setting it to high performance which removes the fan limit. Although I believe it does other things that might increase temperatures.

[flontier]

I dont think it is overheating, my laptop is constently at 90-95°C and it does run a lot smoother than in your video. I have the same graphics cards and memory ram, and an i5-8300H so its weird it sucks like this.

[ryanmankie]

I dont think it is overheating, my laptop is constently at 90-95°C and it does run a lot smoother than in your video. I have the same graphics cards and memory ram, and an i5-8300H so its weird it sucks like this.

Based on XTU, it seems to be throttling based on heat, I don't want to remove that limit since last time I did that the battery in my laptop swelled.
Your laptop might not have throttling? That might mean your laptop might not last long.

[Mitoe]

Hmm, I'm not really sure how to help in that case.

If you're ok with your game looking like trash you could try reducing <Setting Name="optiongrfxsupersample">1.000000</Setting> below 100% in the graphicalprofile.xml and see if that improves performance at all

[ryanmankie]

Hmm, I'm not really sure how to help in that case.

If you're ok with your game looking like trash you could try reducing <Setting Name="optiongrfxsupersample">1.000000</Setting> below 100% in the graphicalprofile.xml and see if that improves performance at all

Thanks! I haven't tried that. Tonight I tested reducing resolution and it seems to lower temperatures by 5C. I'm gonna test GraphicalProfile.xml settings tonight before I sleep, although they will just be idle game tests, not rigorous games.

[Mitoe]

Good luck!

I don't know if this will be useful, but I found this as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe3/comments/ ... oe3de_for/

The mod mentioned in the post is not an option anymore (and they patched it into the game anyway), but some of the other stuff may not have options to disable in-game if you haven't already tried disabling some of them via the xml file.

[helln00]

try running a stress test on your system to see if shows the same behaviour, if it does then we know its not the game.

Also check driver for the GPU, especially try to update through NVIDIA's own software updater since that is more likely to be up to date.

- make sure you have no background tasks
- also check your power brick, dell power brick can reduce power to your system if it thinks something is strange. One way around this is to disable bd prochot in throttlestop

[harcha]

The GHz sitting at 2-3 mark is expected on 6000 and 7000 CPUs, as their sustained rating is about 2.6...2.8 GHz on all cores. And DE only uses 1 core really, so that is why your usage is 8...25% on the CPU.
The computer thermals are configured to sit at 80...95 C comfortably. This is an intended compromise for thermals and noise, and is to be expected in any "non gaming" laptop, like XPS. Seeing 95C is normal for this laptop, and almost any laptop. As long as the performance is mostly consistent it's ok.
DE has some click registering problems, and people are experiencing them even on very capable PCs that are running the game very well (like mine).

With all that being said, the game should run better. Some suggestions:
1) Are you playing with charger plugged in? Because that makes a huge performance difference, you should have it plugged in.
2) Are you running the game on nvidia GPU or the integrated intel? You said you checked, just asking - how did you check this (where did you set the setting and did you confirm it in task manager performance tab (it shows 2 GPUs and utilization for each))?
3) What resolution are you playing at? You really should play at 1080p with that videocard, running any somewhat modern game at 4K is unrealistic with that GPU (assuming 4K because XPS has 4K models).
*Unfortunately due to how 1080p is displayed on 4K XPS displays, it's gonna look significantly worse. Another thing you can try is running at 4K or maybe 2560x1440 but set ingame graphics setting supersampling to the lowest possible (probably 75%).
4) Is your GPU throttling? What GPU usage % are you seeing while playing? Perhaps there is some cooling defect on the GPU?
5) Have you reduced all other graphics settings to the lowest possible? Antialiasing to off, foliage to lowest?
6) What are you using to record the screen? I'd suggest using Nvidia experience to have the smallest performance impact possible.

[Jotunir]

@EAGLEMUT @Aizamk

I'm trying to get DE to work on my laptop.

XPS 15 9560:
- CPU: i7-7700HQ Quad-Core
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
- Memory: 16GB

Gameplay (at 8:32 my stables don't seem to even build, also very hard to click on things):


Performance:


I really want to play this weekend or the next.

Last weekend I experimented with software solutions like undervolting with Intel's XTU along with other things in ThrottleStop, but they all just crashed my laptop during games even when undervolting a very small amount.

Now I'm interested in modding the game. I don't have a problem on TAD, and since they didn't change the engine, I imagine it has to do with the graphics and animations.

I found under "C:\Users\ryanmankie\Games\Age of Empires 3 DE\Common\GraphicalProfile.xml" all the performance settings, some of which were available on TAD but not on DE such as "optiongrfxbitdepth". I tried changing all the options, but it didn't improve (not sure if this is the right file). I heard they disabled mods, but I figured this was more of a profile setting.

If modding isn't an option, my last option is buying thermal paste before having to buy new hardware which I'm not interested in.

How is it posible that it looks and performs worse than the original game 15 years later? The game is totally bugged, nothing works like it should. It Seems like it was made by people who never played the game (also never coded)
My advice would be that if you can, try refunding it. If you really want to play AOE3, go for Legacy version which is still available for purchase and works much better, specially with EP.

[musketeer925]

Have you contacted the official support about this? It looks like you meet the minimum requirements, so it seems like they ought to help you.

At the very least, reporting the problem and providing specs might allow them to investigate and get a fix into a future patch.

[ryanmankie]

Sorry for the late replies, I was sleeping (NA time).

I think this is actually a Dell XPS 15 problem.

The batteries swell and then explode when they are exposed to too much heat. I think they installed something that is throttling performance to keep heat below 85C based on the heat charts I'm seeing.

Last time I removed this thermal limitation, I checked to make sure temperatures weren't going above 95C, but the next day my battery started swelling, and I had to buy a new one for $100. That's why I didn't want to go down that route and instead try to mod the game to be more like TAD which runs smoothly.

I got a lot of good suggestions though, from initial testing it seems promising.

[aaryngend]

Sorry for the late replies, I was sleeping (NA time).

I think this is actually a Dell XPS 15 problem.

The batteries swell and then explode when they are exposed to too much heat. I think they installed something that is throttling performance to keep heat below 85C based on the heat charts I'm seeing.

Last time I removed this thermal limitation, I checked to make sure temperatures weren't going above 95C, but the next day my battery started swelling, and I had to buy a new one for $100. That's why I didn't want to go down that route and instead try to mod the game to be more like TAD which runs smoothly.

I got a lot of good suggestions though, from initial testing it seems promising.

The overheating issue is the most likely cause for your performance problems. As Challenger_Marco pointed out, his rig is even worse and it runs better.
A quick google search brings forth many people complaining that the Dell XPS series has issues with fans, overheating and even coil whine.

How is it posible that it looks and performs worse than the original game 15 years later? The game is totally bugged, nothing works like it should. It Seems like it was made by people who never played the game (also never coded)
My advice would be that if you can, try refunding it. If you really want to play AOE3, go for Legacy version which is still available for purchase and works much better, specially with EP.

Here we go again, if you don't meet the requirements (or have other issues with your PC) the game will run with hiccups.
Every remaster has a much higher system requirement. That's how things are in this world, they are written in more modern libraries and engines so the minimum requirement is getting elevated by a lot.
The original FFVIII for PC had a recommended requirement of a Pentium II with 266MHz, 64MB RAM and a Video card with 16MB RAM, just needing to be a Direct3D-compatible hardware accelerator.
The same game, a re-release in 2013, looks and feels almost 100% the same (just with a bit higher resolution) and requires:
Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU 3GHz or faster
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT or faster
Now go on Youtube and check the graphics of both games. Then check the system requirements. Night and day

I have a 2500K, GTX 1060 6GB and 16GB of RAM and I never lag with this rig. For me, DE runs even better than the old game. Just wish you could fast forward replays in high speed, but that seems bugged in DE.

[ryanmankie]

Unfortunately nothing worked. I downloaded a fan program to increase the fans, but didn't work. I'll probably play a few games then stop until I can get better hardware. Perhaps just have to wait for AOE4.

Thanks all for the ideas.

[harcha]

There in deed were swelling problems on XPSs but that doesnt affect performance. There in deed is bad thermal design but it should be enough for the hardware.

@ryanmankie you should use some performance monitoring application to verify that you're actually using the nvidia chip and that GPU clock speeds are actually lower than the specs. Then you would know if it's a true hardware problem.

If and when this is confirmed it could be as simple as repasting the thermal solution assuming it is not damaged (it's not over/under battery so not affected by any swelling).

However the performance seems believable to me with that hardware and running the game on 4k. How was the performamce on 1080p?

@aaryngend who is expecting it to run well below min reqs anyway?

[ryanmankie]

There in deed were swelling problems on XPSs but that doesnt affect performance. There in deed is bad thermal design but it should be enough for the hardware.

@ryanmankie you should use some performance monitoring application to verify that you're actually using the nvidia chip and that GPU clock speeds are actually lower than the specs. Then you would know if it's a true hardware problem.

If and when this is confirmed it could be as simple as repasting the thermal solution assuming it is not damaged (it's not over/under battery so not affected by any swelling).

However the performance seems believable to me with that hardware and running the game on 4k. How was the performamce on 1080p?

@aaryngend who is expecting it to run well below min reqs anyway?

Bruhh I'm running it right now at 1280 x 720p haha, which is why I can't understand this at all. I do have the 4k one. According to reddit only way is to thermal repaste it or to turn off the thermal manager. Yeah, it's using the GPU, I changed it in the Nvidia control panel. I also see it working in task manager. CPU utilization is only at 15% during games. The game seems to take 5GB of memory, I guess to load in all the xml data from disk.



Power and thermal throttling is strong with this one.

[helln00]

yeah I think your path forward is a combination of thermal repaste( though I had a dell xps it was a pain to take apart) and software to remove the throttleflag.

here is a guide on how to do it on throttlestop.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/thre ... ag.251139/

though I have to warn you that atleast for me, this may have shorten the life of my old laptop( though I'm pretty sure its safe)

[harcha]

@ryanmankie so the performance is so bad even at 720p yes? Asking because you never did specify. If so... Have to check what are the GPU clocks, yes. They should reach 1300 MHz very consistently if it isn't throttling hard.

That CPU graph doesn't really mean anything because "throttling" in general just means the part has reached power or thermal limit. Reaching power limit is actually good - it means it is working as hard as it should per Intels design. Reaching thermal limit is less good - means that it is working as fast as the computers cooling solution allows. In general these thin laptops try to make a design in which the thermal limit is close to the power limit, thus not making the laptop any bigger than it needs to be to support the hardware. However the thing with thermals is that the limit can shrink in the laptops lifetime due to deteriorating thermal paste, dust buildup, worst case bent motherboard or other components due to physical damage (extreme swelling). It's also possible that the power delivery components aren't cooled properly and then you get bad power throttling, but it does not appear to be the case here, as then you would see very low GHz.