Age of Empires Forums

Repper:

i have a widows vista hp laptop and i bought aoe3 complete collection and i downloaded the entire thing but when ever i try to play it brings me to the screen that askes u play uninstall website and stuff. when i click play my computer says its switching to windows basic  graphics or something and then the game stops running

First, format your hard drive and put on XP or Win 7.  j/k... 

Do a search on this site for how to turn down your graphics settings in teh game before it is launched (you change some .xml files)... then launch the game and slowly up some of the graphics.

In Vista or Win 7 you must install the program with an Administrator account as an administrator (right-click the setup.exe and select Run as Administrator), and then run the program in Windows XP, Service Pack 3 and Administrator mode:

1. Right-click the game's .exe file
1. 64-bit location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III
2. 32-bit location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III
3. Read this if you don't know which Vista\Win 7 OS you have.
2. Select Properties.
3. Select the Compatibility tab.
4. Check box next to Run this Program in compatibility mode for.
5. Scroll the menu below this until you find Windows XP (Service Pack 3).

HunterCallahan:

Pop in an XP/Win7 disk. the setup will do it for you. But really, hes kidding.

Just remember that you must actually boot from the disc.. don't just pop it in and start going or it will put some installation files on your current installation and you can't reformat or re-partition.

Repper:

how do i format my hardrive

I was kidding... well, sort of... but this is what you try first (written by some moderator a long time ago):

The games options are all saved and read from the My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Users\NewProfile.xml file. If you want to open if up in wordpad you can find and change some of the values.

I would suggest setting shader quality and shadow detail to zero, as well as a few others.

<Setting Name="optiongrfxshaderquality">0</Setting>
<Setting Name="optiongrfxshadowdetail">0</Setting>
<Setting Name="optiongrfxterraintexquality">0</Setting>
<Setting Name="optiongrfxmodeltexquality">0</Setting>
<Setting Name="optiongrfxtexfilterquality">0</Setting>
<Setting Name="optionrenderanisotropic">false</Setting>

Repper:

i have a widows vista hp laptop and i bought aoe3 complete collection and i downloaded the entire thing but when ever i try to play it brings me to the screen that askes u play uninstall website and stuff. when i click play my computer says its switching to windows basic  graphics or something and then the game stops running

Repper:

i ran it as administrator but nothing happened do i have to uninstall it or something 

Also do the other thing metis said, run in XP compatilibility mode... then update your graphics drivers, THEN DO THE XML THING!

I was able to run AOE on a really crappy vostro 100... which means it should be able to run on just about anything, but may look like crap... was good for testing out stuff real quick.

Repper:

how do u run in xp combatibility mode

Refer back to my previous post in this thread (I've edited in more information).

there is no compatability tab

What model is your HP laptop and what version of Vista are you running? If you are unsure go to Start > Run and type in

dxdiag

then press Enter.

Choose to save the information as a text file then copy it here (it's long but who cares the info we need will be there).

Also, are you the person who has Admin privileges on your computer?

windows 7 proffessional 64-bit (6.1, build 7601)

hewlet-packard

hp pavillon dv5 notebook pc

defualt system bios

memory 4096mb ram

directx 11 version 

ATI radeon HD 3200 graphics

and i am the administrator if u need any other information tell me