How To Fix Age of Empires 4 If It Crashes When Starting Game

Age of Empires 4 crashes on your PC when you are starting or launching the game on Steam? Have you tried restarting your PC and the gaming app but couldn’t make it work? Don’t worry, we’ll show you why the game keeps crashing and how can you fix this issue by applying easy and quick troubleshooting steps.

Age of Empires 4 is the fourth and the latest installment of the Age of Empires series. The game promises a new RTS (Real-time strategies) and 8 civilizations that should be a great fit for newcomers and veterans alike. Age of Empires fourth edition is a spiritual successor of the second edition and spans medieval generations on a larger scale.

However, the newly released version is not immune to bugs. A lot of players are reporting that when they try to launch the game on their PCs through Steam, it simply crashes.

Why does my Age of Empires keep crashing?

If Age of Empires 4 straight up crash or won’t launch on your PC, it can be due to the following reasons.

Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables are missing necessary files to launch the game
Your graphic card drivers are outdated
Age of Empires 4 is blocked in antivirus settings
Computer or laptop is using onboard GPU instead of high performance dedicated GPU
Background programs are eating up PC resources to launch the game successfully

How do I fix my Age of Empires 4 from crashing?

To fix Age of Empire 4 crashing on launching, try the following troubleshooting steps.

Choose correct graphic drivers

Outdated graphic drivers affect the launch of Age of Empires 4. Therefore, make sure that you are using the latest graphic drivers. Nvidia and AMD have already launched the game-ready drivers specifically for the fourth installment of the Age of Empires series.

The Nvidia version is 496.49 and the AMD version is Adrenalin 21.10.3 Optional. You can install the Nvidia graphic drivers via GeForce Experience. Intel users can download the latest drivers from Microsoft official website.

Check Antivirus settings

The antivirus program on your PC may be preventing the Age of Empires from launching if the game is not allowed in the antivirus settings. To fix this, whitelist the game in your antivirus program and then check if you can launch it without experiencing a crash.

Update Visual C++ Redistributables

There is a chance that the current Visual C++ is not installed correctly on your PC and might be missing MSVCP140.dll and vcruntime140_1.dll files which are necessary to launch the game properly.

If you are experiencing crashes with Age of Empires 4, performing a clean installation of the Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Redistributables can fix the issue.

Verify game files on Steam

Quite often, game files on Steam are missing texture and other content that can cause Age of Empires to crash. However, the fix for these missing game files is very easy. To do this:

First, restart your PC and launch the Steam client app
Navigate to Steam library and right-click on Age of Empires 4
Now click on Properties and go to the Local Files tab
Next, click on “Verify integrity of game files”
Wait for a few minutes to let Steam complete the verification process
Launch the Age of Empires 4 game and see if the issue persists

Launch the game directly through Steam

Quite a few users successfully launched the Age of Empires 4 directly instead of through the Steam client. You can do this in the following way.

Navigate to the Steam Client library section
Right-click on Age of Empires 4 and click on Properties
Next, go to Local Files and select the “Browse local files” option
Finally, double-click on AoE4.exe to launch the game directly

How do I change my integrated graphics card to a dedicated GPU?

Sometimes, a system has two graphic cards. One is an onboard graphic chipset and the other is a dedicated video card for gaming. When you are playing a high-resource demanding game, by default, the system uses the onboard GPU that results in a game crash. To fix this, you have to set your dedicated GPU as the default GPU.

If your laptop/computer has Nvidia graphic card, here is what you need to do.

Launch Nvidia Control Panel program
On the left pane, select Manage 3D Settings
Under the Programs tab, navigate to the “Select a program to customize” option
Next, click on Age of Empires 4 (If you don’t see the game here, click on Add to add the Age of Empires 4)
Now change the “Select the preferred graphics processor for this program” option to the “High-performance NVIDIA processor” option

For laptops/computers running an AMD GPU:

Launch the AMD Control Panel and go to the Graphics tab
Next, click on PowerPlay
Now change the “Battery” and “Plugged in” options to “Maximum Performance” and apply the changes
Navigate back to the Graphics tab and click on 3D
Slide the Performance option until it shows Optimal Performance and click Apply

AMD Users who see the Switchable Graphics tab instead of Graphics, select Age of Empires 4 in the list and set it for “High Performance”. Afterward, apply the changes. Hopefully, the game won’t crash from now on.

How to fix Age of Empires 4 crashes in Windows Xbox app?

If you are playing Age of Empires 4 on your PC using the Xbox app, you have the option to repair the game to fix the crashing issues on startup. The repair process replaces the missing and broken game files. To do this:

Navigate to Windows Settings and click on Apps & features
Scroll and locate Age of Empires 4 from the list
Select Age of Empires 4 and then click on Advanced options
Finally, click on Repair to start the repairing process
Now launch the game and verify that you are not witnessing any crashing issue

Conclusion

Hopefully, you have found a fix for the “Age of Empires 4 crashes when starting the game” issue in this guide. Before starting the troubleshooting steps, start by closing any programs or third-party applications running in the background as this can cause game lag that can lead to crashing. Also, install the latest Windows updates as well.