Age of Empires III Crashing to Desktop - Please Respond!

Frontline1944 · 05-13-2008

Hello, all -

First off, I don't believe that I have Vistax64 (my system stats say "System type : 32-bit Operating System), but hopefully that isn't an issue; and anyways, this is probably the last place I can come for help.

I recently downloaded the Age of Empires III Trial from the official
website. I needed to input the administrator password a few times before it
was completely installed, but that wasn't a big issue. The problem is that
whenever I open AoE3, it will go to the opening screen (showing the title and
Microsoft Studios, etc.) and then to the loading screen, but as soon as the
music starts and it's ready to transition to the main screen, it closes to
the desktop; it doesn't even minimize to the toolbar, just completely closes.
I can't get past the loading screen. I've tried running it as administrator,
running it in compatibility mode, everything that I can think of, but it just
won't stop closing. Now, I'm fairly sure that my graphics cards/drivers/everything else are in order sufficiently enough to play AoE3:

Windows Vista Ultimate
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
2.00 GB RAM
Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
465 GB Hard Drive
3.4 Gaming Graphics Score (Windows Experience Index)

Now, here's the real kicker - after not being able to play the trial on this
computer, I switched over my old computer (very inferior to this one), and
the trial works on it (with the lowest graphics settings, but it still
manages to start up and play)!

I ran a "see if your computer can run this game" test for both of the computers for AoEIII. Both of them "failed" in the graphics category. My Dell Inspiron 530 (the one I'm having trouble with) was above and beyond in every category except Video HW Transform & Lighting, which my graphics card apparently doesn't support. Strangely, though, the other computer (the one that the trial runs on) did poorer in all of the categories than the Dell did; and in the graphics category, it didn't have Transform & Lighting OR Video Card 3D Acceleration.

So, I'm not sure if my graphics card isn't good enough (which doesn't make sense, since the Dell ranked better than the old computer in graphic capabilities) or if I'm missing a program that would allow the trial or startup or whatever may be the problem.

Oh, and I happened to find a "Problem Report" regarding AoEIII (perhaps it will make some sense to you computer geniuses):

Problem : Program Compatibility

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: PCA2
Problem Signature 01: age3.exe
Problem Signature 02: 0.1.2.6
Problem Signature 03: Age of Empires 3
Problem Signature 04: Microsoft Ensemble Studios Age of Empires 3
Problem Signature 05: Ensemble Studios
Problem Signature 06: 200
Problem Signature 07: -1
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 14347942

If anyone can lend me a suggestion as to what I can do to eliminate this
problem, I will be greatly appreciative. : ) And if there is no apparent solution, can anybody point me to a site where I can ask again? (Sorry for the wordy post; I just wanted to include as much information as possible)

**dmex** · 05-13-2008

Hi Frontline and Welcome to Vistax64.com!

We also help out 32bit users, I myself use 32bit.

As for AOE3 Have you downloaded the latest game patch?
Download Here: Ensemble Studios: Age of Empires III: Game Updates

Im thinking the problem is defiantly related to your on-board Graphics card or Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset...
Built-in graphics cards use your CPU and memory to enable them to function and while this is good for movies or general use its absolutly horrible for all games.

Most games are resource hogs especially when it comes to graphics so when you have a built-in graphics card using your CPU and Memory it becomes a dogs breakfast for the game trying to render images...

Take these examples:

OnBoard: Game loads graphics into memory then sends to CPU for processing then back to the memory then the CPU again before getting displayed onscren, this overlapping causes the little amount of resources the on-board card has to overload and crash the game.

Seperate: Yet if you have a separate graphics card in the system the game can send the graphics directly to the separate graphics card getting instantly displayed without having to run back and forth saving all the other resources for other uses also giving Vista a huge performace increase.

So if the patch doesnt get the game working go out and buy a graphics card for your computer, They are fairly cheap these days.

I hope this helps, Let me know if you need some more help finding a good graphics card.

cheers
Steven

Frontline1944 · 05-14-2008

Thank you so much for your reply dmex (Steve

); you are literally the first to actually bother to respond to my question (after about five other tries in other places). I really appreciate it.

Well, you seemed to have answered the question. I heard rumors that these on-board graphics cards (they are also referred to as integrated graphics, are they not?) were fairly useless for playing any recent games.

So, I guess the graphics card for my old computer (S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR) is a separate card, which is why the old computer was able to run it despite it being slower than the Dell.

Oh, I have tried downloading the patch, but I don't have the full game, just the trial version, so apparently the patch won't even do anything.

So, because I'm not sure that I will have the opportunity to buy a new graphics card, I was wondering whether I could take the S3 Savage DDR card from my old computer and replace the Intel Chipset with it in the Vista. Is that at all possible? I think I have heard that Vista-supporting computers have room for another separate card for these types of cases...

And if that's not possible, what graphics card do you recommend for me (since I haven't a clue on what's good and bad and what's best for what computer and game and etcetera) - I don't want to play Crysis or Call of Duty 4; just somewhat recent games like AoEIII and Battlefield 2.

emma · 05-18-2008

I bet you have the same damned STRETCHED DESKTOP problem as I and many other users do! This problem appears in a lot of games, for instance I encounter it with the Sims 2! Can anyone help us????

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