Here's a list of suggestions to help optimize your Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition experience.
🛠 Make sure the computer meets the minimum requirements
A full list of the minimum and recommended requirements can be found here.
🛠 Adjust Graphics Options in game
There are several settings that can affect how smoothly the game runs. These can be found from the main menu by clicking Options and then look through the Graphics Options. Several suggests are below:
- Change Super Sampling to 100% instead of 200%
- Disable Bloom Effect
- Change Particle Quality to Low
- Disable Tracer Effects
- Change the quality to Low for
- Foliage
- Shaders
- Water
- Shadows
- Textures
🛠 Check monitor resolution settings
Double check your other graphics card and monitor settings to ensure that there isn't something limiting your power.
🛠 Close Any Background Applications
This will help mitigate any disruptions while you’re playing Age of Empires. You can see what applications are currently running by pressing ALT + SHIFT + Esc to open the Task Manager window.
🛠 If you have multiple graphics cards (GPU), make sure the game is set to use best or high performance.
If these steps do not work for you, consider adjusting your settings at the graphics-card level (exact steps for this will vary between graphics card models). This step especially applies if you are playing on a gaming laptop, which may come with multiple GPUs by default.
Steam:
- Open Steam and locate the game.
- Right-click on the game and select Manage > Browse Local Files.
- In the File Explorer that opens, highlight the file pathway and copy it (CTRL + C).
- Go to your Windows Start menu and search for Graphics Settings.
- Windows 10 search for Display, scroll to the bottom of the window and click Graphics settings.
- Open Graphics Settings and click Browse.
- In the explorer window, paste (CTRL + V) the copied file pathway into the file pathway field.
- Select the game’s executable application.
- The application should now show in Graphics Settings page
- Click Options
- Change the graphics preference in the pop-up window to High Performance
- Click Save
Microsoft Store:
- Go to your Windows Start menu and search for Graphics Settings
- Windows 10 search for Display, scroll to the bottom of the window and click Graphics settings.
- Open Graphics Settings
- Change the dropdown from Desktop App to Microsoft Store App
- Find the game
- Windows 10 - A second dropdown will appear. Select the game title from that dropdown.
- Windows 11 - Click Browse and select the game title from the list.
- Click Add and the game should now show in Graphics Settings page
- Click Options
- Change the graphics preference in the pop-up window to High Performance
- Click Save