Age of Empires 4, the fourth installment of the Age of Empires series, brings an evolved real-time strategy game to a new generation. However, just like any other newly launched games, Age of Empires 4 is not immune to bugs and crashes. If Age of Empires 4 keeps crashing on your PC, don’t worry! The good news is you’ve come to the right place, and you should be able to fix this issue easily after reading this article.
System requirements of Age of Empires 4 for Windows PC
Before trying anything more complicated, you need to make sure that your PC meets the system requirements of Age of Empires 4 first. If you don’t know the system requirements of the game, just take a quick glance at the table below:
| System requirements | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| OS: | Windows 10 64bit | Windows 11 64bit | Windows 10 64bit | Windows 11 64bit |
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-6300U or AMD Ryzen 5 2400G | CPU with AVX support required | 3.6 GHz 6-core (Intel i5) or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 | CPU with AVX support required |
| Memory: | 8 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics: | Intel HD 520 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 | Nvidia GeForce 970 GPU or AMD Radeon RX 570 GPU with 4GB of VRAM |
| DirectX: | Version 12 | Version 12 |
| Storage: | 50 GB available space | 50 GB available space |
If your PC fails to meet the system requirements of the game, you may need to upgrade your PC first.
If it keeps crashing on your powerful PC, just read on and try the fixes below.
Try these fixes
Whether the game crashes on startup or crashes in the middle of the game, you can find a fix to try in this article. You don’t need to try them all. Just work your way down the list until you find the one that works for you.
- Verify integrity of game files
- Update your graphics driver
- Install the latest game patch
- Disable overlays
- Temporarily disable anti-virus software
- Perform a clean boot
Verify integrity of game files
Game file corruption is one of the common causes of the game crashing issue. If some important game files are missing or corrupted, the game would crash. But don’t worry, you can verify and repair game files easily in Steam:
- Launch Steam and go to your Library.
- Right-click on Age of Empires 4 and select Properties.
- Click Installed Files on the left, then click on the Verify integrity of game files button. If Steam finds anything wrong with the game files, it will re-download them from its official server.
Depending on the size of the game files, it may take some time to verify all your game files.
Run Age of Empires 4 after the verifying process is complete. See if it crashes again. If this issue persists, try the next fix, below.
Update your graphics driver
The graphics driver is essential to the functioning of video games. If Age of Empires 4 keeps crashing on your PC, you likely have a corrupted or outdated graphics driver on your PC. So you should update your drivers to see if it fixes the game crashing issues.
You can update your graphics driver manually: first, go to the manufacturer’s download page (AMD / NVIDIA), then search your model and download the correct driver installer. But if you don’t have the time, patience, or skills to update the driver manually, you can do it automatically with Driver Easy.
Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for it. You don’t need to know exactly what system your computer is running, you don’t need to be troubled by the wrong driver you would be downloading, and you don’t need to worry about making a mistake when installing. Driver Easy handles it all.
- Download and install Driver Easy.
- Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
- Click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system.
(This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All. If you’re not ready to buy the Pro version, Driver Easy offers a 7-day free trial which includes access to all the Pro features such as high-speed download and one-click install. You won’t be charged anything until your 7-day trial has ended.)
- Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Install the latest game patch
The developer of Age of Empires 4 releases regular game patches to fix bugs and improve gaming performance. It’s possible that a recent patch has caused the game crash issue, and that a new patch is required to fix it.
If a patch is available, it will be detected by Steam, and the latest game patch will be automatically downloaded and installed when you launch the game.
Launch Age of Empires 4 again and check if this fix works. If it didn’t work, or there was no new game patch available, move on to the next fix, below.
Disable overlays
Overlays sometimes would interfere with the game and even block the game files, which may cause the game to crash.
If you’re using the Steam Overlay while playing the game, try disabling Steam Overlay for Age of Empires 4 and see if the game crashes again:
- Launch Steam and navigate to the LIBRARY tab. right-click on Age of Empires 4. Then select Properties.
- Uncheck Enable Steam Overlay while in-game.
If you’re using other apps with overlay features (e.g. Nvidia GeForce Experience, Discord, Twitch, etc.), make sure you’ve disabled the in-game overlay in those apps feature.
Run the game and see if the it crashes again. If this fix doesn’t work, try the next fix, below.
Temporarily disable anti-virus software
Many 3rd party antivirus software may also interfere with game files. Once some important game files are blocked by third-party antivirus software, the game crashes.
You can try adding both the game folder and Steam as an exception to your third-party antivirus application. If necessary, temporarily disable the 3rd party antivirus software before playing the game.
Launch Age of Empires 4 to see if the game crashes after you disable the anti-virus software on your PC.
If this fix didn’t work, try the next fix, below.
Perform a clean boot
If there’s a certain app conflicting with Age of Empires 4, the game will crash. Not sure which app is conflicting with the game? Don’t worry. You can follow the steps below to perform a clean boot, and you’ll find it out. Here’s how to do it:
- On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R at the same time to open the Run Dialog. Type msconfig and press Enter to open the System Configuration window.
- Navigate to the Services tab, check Hide all Microsoft services, and then click Disable all.
- Select the Startup tab and click Open Task Manager.
- On the Startup tab in Task Manager, for each startup item, select the item and then click Disable.
- Go back to the System Configuration window and click OK.
- Click Restart to restart your PC.
Restart your PC and launch Age of Empires 4 to check if the game crashes again. If not, open the System Configuration window again to enable services and applications one by one until you find the problematic software.
Once you find out the problematic software that crashes Age of Empires 4, you can uninstall it to avoid game crashing issues in the future.
If the crashing issue reappears after you disable all the 3rd party apps and services, try reinstalling Age of Empires 4.
Normally, after reinstalling the game, you’ll be able to fix the crashing issue.
Tips:
If these common fixes didn’t help you fix the Age of Empires 4 crashing issue, you can also try investigating Windows crash logs to analyze and troubleshoot the causes of the crash. For more details, see the article: How to check crash logs.
Hopefully, one of the fixes above helped you fix the Age of Empires 4 crashing issue. Feel free to drop a line in the comment area below if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for reading!
