AoE2 in Vista / Win7

[coolVariable]

Age of Empires 2 is one of the greatest games of all time, so it is always a must install for me.

Sadly, the game has a nasty graphics error in Vista and Win7: the toxic grass. Pixels are not the correct color resulting in some nasty red/green pixelated grass, water/oceans are mis-colored, etc.

I have googled far and wide ... there are many people reporting the issue but no true fix.
I was often able to fix it in Vista by alt-tabbing out of the game and back in, sometimes restarting helped. With Win7 ... nothing seems to work.

Any help? Anyone know a fix?

 

[Tyranicus]

Try setting your display settings to 16-bit before launching the game.

 

[coolVariable]

Doesn't work.
Also tried:
- enabling compatibility mode (XP SP2)
- run in 256 colors
- disable visual themes
- disable desktop composition
- disable display scaling on high DPI settings
- run as administrator

 

[TC91]

what graphics card are you using?

 

[Firsttime]

Did you try the c patch?

 

[Powered by AMD]

With c and e patch in my Vista notebook it works perfect without setting anything extra.
Maybe if you ALT-TAB is the only way I can get those errors. But once I close it and start again, it gets fine.

 

[coolVariable]

got the 1.0c patch for conquerors installed.
(There is no e patch.)

My gfx card is an integrated intel 945 GMA (not the best, I know, but if you have a laptop/tablet you are stuck).

All the menue screens look fine.
It's only in game that I get this horrible graphics error.

 

[Sam25]

The 945 GMA should be able to run AoE 2. I would have suggested compatibility mode...but I see if you've already given it a shot. Google results show many people have had this problem with Vista, seems really strange there is no actual fix for this issue.

I read here that you might try pressing 'Ctrl + Alt + Del' during the game then close the task manager and return to the game to see if it solves the discoloration problems.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Sam25
The 945 GMA should be able to run AoE 2. I would have suggested compatibility mode...but I see if you've already given it a shot. Google results show many people have had this problem with Vista, seems really strange there is no actual fix for this issue.

I read here that you might try pressing 'Ctrl + Alt + Del' during the game then close the task manager and return to the game to see if it solves the discoloration problems.

That is the same as Alt-Tabbing.
Alt+Tab sometimes used to work in Vista but that can't be the official way to go.
No go in win7.

The bug seems widespread enough that I have added it to wikipedia.

Would love to hear other solutions and/or someone write a patch for it.

 

[SuPrEIVIE]

well i too play but the expansion and this is unavoidable it will happen from time to time, alt+tabbing method that you are aware of always solved this for me everytime, even though its an inconvenience at least it works.

Also i had a friend that suffered graphical errors not sure if its the exact problem your having, but installing the 1.0e patch in a different directory than the game fixed it for him.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Wanted to say alt-tab, but that's been covered... I have no idea about Windows 7. If I see anything I'll post it.

AOE2 is epic. Before I discovered the alt-tab trick with Vista, I just got used to the post-apocalyptic middle ages setting.

 

[Powered by AMD]

anyone who wanna play online Conquerors just ask me BTW, poweredbyamd@gmail.com

 

[coolVariable]

Really sad that there is no fix for this for W7 and Vista.
I mean it's nice that the Alt+Tab works for some but it's not a guaranteed solution?

 

[coolVariable]

Might give Age of Mythology a try tonight although I really do not like the 3-D graphics.
IMO they are a total gimmick in a RTS game and I would take AoE2 any time over the stupid new 3-D engine!

 

[coolVariable]

AoM is not bad but definitely not as good as AoE2.
The 3D just doesn't add anything for RTS games and the graphics in AoE2 looked much much better.

Noticed some flickering sometimes in AoM - that common?

 

[jenesuispasbavard]

I'm late to the party, but this issue is still unresolved.
I have exactly the same problem (weird colours in Vista and Windows 7).

The problem is easily fixed in Windows Vista by installing DirectX 9.0c.

Unfortunately, nothing works in Windows 7. I've tried everything that coolVariable has tried, but the problem persists.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: jenesuispasbavard
I'm late to the party, but this issue is still unresolved.
I have exactly the same problem (weird colours in Vista and Windows 7).

The problem is easily fixed in Windows Vista by installing DirectX 9.0c.

Unfortunately, nothing works in Windows 7. I've tried everything that coolVariable has tried, but the problem persists.

Thought I would 'up' this.
Still an issue that is not resolved.

Trying to get some more publicity for the problem by adding it to Wikipedia (despite some Nazi's attempt to censor it, since there is no "official acknowledgement of the issue and it is 'only' documented by 960,000 'forum' postings):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...s_II:_The_Age_of_Kings

 

[Farmer]

My friends play this on LAN from time to time, and those of us who are running Win7 definitely encounter this problem every time AOK is loaded.

 

[Dorkenstein]

You can play it windowed with a download that I found on a portuguese site, but it makes the screen real estate smaller, obviously.

 

[Red Storm]

This is quite easy to fix (at least, it was for me on my Vista laptop). When you get the messed up grass in-game, change your game's resolution (in-game through options, not the main menu) and then change it back. This has resolved the grass issue 100% of the time for me.

 

[Zenoth]

Give a try to Rise of Nations, it's better than AoE 2 in my opinion.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
You can play it windowed with a download that I found on a portuguese site, but it makes the screen real estate smaller, obviously.

Link?

Originally posted by: Red Storm
This is quite easy to fix (at least, it was for me on my Vista laptop). When you get the messed up grass in-game, change your game's resolution (in-game through options, not the main menu) and then change it back. This has resolved the grass issue 100% of the time for me.

Already covered further up. Works under Vista somewhat consistently but does NOT work with Win7.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Ugh, I found the page I got it from and even though I can't read much Portuguese, I think it's a bad idea to link it here due to the presence of warez links. Not sure what to do now, I hate to tease with a fix and then withhold it, but I might be able to email it or host it somewhere else. Sorry.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
Ugh, I found the page I got it from and even though I can't read much Portuguese, I think it's a bad idea to link it here due to the presence of warez links. Not sure what to do now, I hate to tease with a fix and then withhold it, but I might be able to email it or host it somewhere else. Sorry.

Can you PM me?

 

[Auryg]

I've got a batch file on my laptop that fixes this. I'll post what it is here later, but it basically kills windows explorer(.exe), starts the game, and then restarts explorer.