How to Fix Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition PC Performance Issues / Lag / Low FPS

If you’re reading this, you might be facing some lag or low FPS while playing Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition. Fear not! We’ve got some tried and tested tricks up our sleeve to get your game running smoother.

Give Your CPU Some Breathing Space

• First things first, shut down any unnecessary programs, especially those memory hogs like browsers.

• Here’s a neat trick: Give your game a VIP status! How? Open your Task Manager, find the game, right-click, and set its priority to “High”.

For the NVIDIA Gang

• Keeping your graphics driver updated is like giving it a fresh dose of caffeine. So, make sure it’s up-to-date.

• Dive into the NVIDIA Control Panel (just right-click on your desktop). Head to “Manage 3D settings” and make these nifty changes:

Set the max pre-rendered frames to 1.

Crank up that refresh rate.

Choose performance over power saving.

Turn on threaded optimization and turn off vertical sync.

• Lock in those changes, and you’re good to go!

A Little Spring Cleaning

• Old files lingering around are like cobwebs in your computer’s attic. Time for some cleaning!

Use the Win + R combo and type in “prefetch” and “%temp%” one at a time to get rid of unnecessary files.

Feeling a bit more thorough? Pop open “Disk Cleanup” from the Windows search and let it do its magic.

Unleash Your PC’s Full Power

• Go to your Power Options and switch it to “High Performance”. It’s like letting your PC off its leash!

• A word of caution: tweaking the C-states in BIOS can offer more power, but only fiddle with it if you’re comfortable.

Game Shortcut Tweaks

• Right-click on your game’s shortcut. In “Properties” under the “Compatibility” tab, you’ll find some options to enhance performance. Give them a whirl!

Driver Update 101!

• Not sure if your video card driver’s updated? Press Windows + R, type “DxDiag”, and under the “Display” tab, you’ll find all the info you need. If you’re due for an update, head to the manufacturer’s website.

AMD Drivers

Nvidia Drivers

Intel Drivers

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