Troubleshooting

DirectX troubleshooting

What do you have to do if the game crashes (most likely in the main menu or after a few minutes of playing)?

If you have not installed the patch yet, do this first. Then, try the game with the -msync, -normalmouse and -mfill parameters. Then, disable the sound. Consult the readme.doc file on the CD for more info.
Run Dxtool.exe and Dxsetup from Directx directory on the CD-ROM. All DirectX drivers should be certified and new (version 4.X). Reinstalling DirectX might help if you have some old drivers.
Make sure you have that latest graphics and sound drivers available (go to page of the manufacturers of the hardware to get them). Installing the latest version of DirectX (look for the version number at www.microsoft.com but try to find a mirror server for the download) might help if it still does not work.

Internet troubleshooting

1. Are you using the Zone? If so:
   1. Are you playing with people with too much latency? Try getting games with green people only.
   2. Did you upgrade IE to version 4?
   
   
2. If you can get a game started, are there any "turles" in it? Look on your lower right-hand part and click the button that pops up the lag monitor... watch out for turtles. Sometimes everyone looks green but after you are in a game they fluctuate.

3. Have you tried waiting it out? In many games, the internet gridlock will hang the game for a few minutes. During this time you are able to bark out your orders but no one will move yet. The cool thing about this is that you can take advantage of it to check on all your villagers and organize your military units, etc. Then if the game unhangs, everyone will scramble to carry out your orders. My games hit against this hang once every two or so games and the result is: a) Someone else gets knocked out of the game, b) I get knocked out of the game, c) Everyone resumes, or d) The game aborts and everyone gets sent back to the zone. But...SOMETHING eventually happens if I wait it out.

4. Have you tried turning off your sound? (Just to narrow down the possibilities). Also try playing in a different screen resolution (ok I'm grasping at straws but hey ya never know).

5. Are you running ICQ? Try shutting it down before playing an AoE game. Try hitting ctrl-alt-delete to see what is running in the background... maybe you can shut down something.

6. Try turning off your screen saver. I'm thinking to myself 'what background process kicks in after a while' and the screen saver came to mind, even though I'm sure you're doing a lot of clicking etc. Who knows. Another idea: Do you have a virus scanner that periodically kicks in and checks memory? Where am I going with this? Just thinking if you shut off everything except the minimum to run AoE you might be able to narrow it down.

Try toggling on/off each thing separately so that whenever it fixes your problem you know who the culprit is. Let us know what you find!