Tech Help FAQ
Thank you to Mascherano for creating the
Before posting, please ask yourself the following questions; it helps anyone trying to help you determine the exact nature of the problem, and saves time. The more information you can give, the easier it is to help you.
- Check whether your hardware and software requirements meet that of Age of Empires 3. You can find the minimum requirements and how to find your own specifications in Section 1 below. If you are making a new topic or post about a hardware or software issue, please post your exact hardware specification. The most important things to include are your processor model, the amount of RAM you have, your graphics card and your motherboard chipset (if you know it).
- Check whether the latest version of
DirectX is installed on your computer. - Check whether the drivers for your hardware (video card, sound card, network card etc.) are up-to-date.
- Check whether you have the latest patch. The patches can be found
here. - Check whether the latest version of
If you are playing a `warez' or CD-Cracked copy of the game, there will be no support for your problem until your installation of the game is not illegally altered. Normally a re-install of the game from the CD will fix this problem. We do not support them because warezed/CD-Cracks modify the game and introduces more problems that we do not support.
Please note that while members of staff will try their best to assist you there is no guarantee that they will be able to come up with a solution for your particular problem, therefore this forum is present for skilled forumers to assist others in time of technical needs.
ES also have a FAQ at Age Community,
PC with 1.4 Ghz equivalent or higher processor that supports SSE
256 MB of system RAM
2.0 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
64 MB video card with Hardware Transform & Lighting (HT&L)
Sound card with speakers or headphones
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
56.6 Kbps or better modem for online play
DirectX 9.0c or above
8 Players - P4 3.2 GHz (or equivalent), 2 GB RAM, and Cable/DSL, LAN
6 Players - P4 2.8 GHz (or equivalent), 1 GB RAM, and Cable/DSL, LAN
4 Players - P4 2.2 GHz (or equivalent), 512 MB RAM, and Cable/DSL, LAN
2 Players - P4 1.4 GHz (or equivalent), 256 MB RAM minimum (512 MB RAM recommended), and 56 KBps modem
If you are looking to see whether your graphics card will run well with AoE3 or if you are looking to upgrade your graphics card these two threads
- Go to ESO from the game main menu, and the patch will be automatically downloaded and installed for you.
- The patches are also available in standalone versions, which can be downloaded from
Age Community here . These have to be installed manually. - The patches are also available in standalone versions, which can be downloaded from
- The patch requires at least 1.4 Gb of free space on your hard drive to be able to install.
- Having certain user mods installed can cause the game to crash after patching. Be sure to remove any modifications you have made to the game files before you patch. If you did not remove any mods before you patched and your game is crashing, you will need to reinstall the game before patching up to 1.08 again.
- If you are unable to connect to ESO after patching and did not have the problem before, your firewall may have reset the rules for Age of Empires 3. Check that age3.exe is allowed access to the Internet.
- Having certain user mods installed can cause the game to crash after patching. Be sure to remove any modifications you have made to the game files before you patch. If you did not remove any mods before you patched and your game is crashing, you will need to reinstall the game before patching up to 1.08 again.
Also, when making posts or emails about issues after patching, ES would like you to run their file check utility:
"We are asking that if you encounter a problem after patching please run our new file check utility and include the results in any emails or forum posts you make about your problem. File Check Utility
This tool checks several key age3 files to verify they are the correct verison.
Instructions:
1) Patch to the latest game version
2) Save this file to your desktop
3) Launch the esage3filechecker.exe from your desktop
4) After the process is completed open the ESAge3Results.txt file (should also be placed on your desktop)
5) Open this file to view results which could include any combination of the following results: Invalid (corrupt file), Invalid Version, Not Found, & Version Correct.
6) A successful installation should return all listed as Version Correct."
Before posting or even reading this section you should check in Section 1 that your computer has the required system requirements and that your video card is compatible with the game.
You should also check with
A:
A.
2. Type in DXDiag and hit Enter
3. Select the Sound tab and turn the hardware acceleration slider all the way to the left
Also check your hard drive for heavy fragmentation. Make sure that it is not fragmented by running defrag found in your system tools. This may take awhile but it will help sound and system performance.
If the game crashes after having choppy sound the first thing you should do is to make sure the game is up to date with the latest patch. However if this doesn't work you can follow two alternative ways:
- You have modified any of the important game files for online play, such as proto.xml and game.cfg. In this case, you will need to remove your modifications or replace them with the original files. If you cannot do this or it doesn't work, you will need to do a clean reinstall.
- You are running a a no-CD crack or a pirated version of the game, in which case we will not help you, and will take action in accordance with our
Code of Conduct if you admit to doing this. Pirated and cracked games are illegal. - If you experience this problem after patching, the patch probably hasn't installed correctly. You will need to reinstall the game.
- You are running a a no-CD crack or a pirated version of the game, in which case we will not help you, and will take action in accordance with our
Also, you may not be able to connect to ESO if the servers are down for maintenance work. Check the front page of
- Log off ESO and log back on again. If this does not work:
- Power cycle your computer and network hardware. Turn off your modem, router and computer, then restart them a few minutes later in that order.
- Check that your firewall is allowing age3.exe to connect to the Internet. You can test whether this is the source of the problem by turning your firewall off completely while attempting to connect to a game. Be warned, this will leave your computer vulnerable to attack.
- If your router has a 'Gaming Mode', have this turned on.
- Power cycle your computer and network hardware. Turn off your modem, router and computer, then restart them a few minutes later in that order.
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A:
1) Browse to My Documents\my Games\Age of empires3\data
2) Look for a file named uipersonastats-
3) If the file exists try logging in using the listed
If that does not work then:
1) E-mail age3support@microsoft.com put “username lookup request” in the subject line
2) Then answer the auto response e-mail with the appropriate information
3) Be sure to include the e-mail you registered with and your PID.
A:
1) E-mail age3support@microsoft.com put “password help” in the subject line
2) Answer the auto response e-mail with the appropriate information
3) Be sure to include the e-mail you registered with and your PID.
A:
A:
This month I have mostly been playing Zelda Breath of the Wild
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Age of Empires 3 Heaven Seraph
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
[This message hasn't been edited by fred_ernie (or Maffia) (not edited 12-29-2005 @ 09:57 AM).]
[This message has been edited by Maffia (edited 03-05-2011 @ 01:37 PM).]