cant run age of empires on vostro 1500

everytime i run the game it crashes. when i updated from dell driver to lv2g drivers it crashes even faster. by crash i mean my screen just freezes.

now oddly when i run it on battery it runs just fine.

this is my theory: aoc being an old game is bypassing the 60hz refresh rate of the screen and so the screen crashes to prevent damage. when i run it on battery the performance is lower, lower refresh rate , so everything is running fine.

now what i wanna know is how i can fix it? or how can i lower the performance of my laptop to battery-like performance without running on battery?

 

Are the settings set to above your maximum resolution?

 

You can try setting your refresh rate to 59hz in your nvidia control panel.

 

Happened for me too. Would like to know why too.

 

yes thats kinda obvious, already did that. but the thing is aoc bypasses that somehow i think. im not looking for a fix for that, that would be too complicated. I just wanna know how i can lower the performance of my system while staying connected to a power source. but i dont want be to be downclocking or anything like that. Im just looking for a simple solution if its out there.


anyone?

 

I don't know if this program would help
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

I know of someone who used it on a desktop (though the program was designed for laptops) because he was running an old game from 1999 (Outcast) that wouldn't work right on his new computer because it was too fast. I'm not sure if it only works on Windows XP or if it works on Vista.

 

ive been playing around with it for 15 mins but i cant figure out how to use it properly. Im assuming this will add a load to ur CPU.. but i cant figure out how to do it :\ so many options

 

No it doesn't add a load to the CPU. It controls CPU frequencies. It was originally designed as a power saving utility for laptops, so it should make your laptop do something similar to what it does when it's on battery.

 

did you install the patch? i downloaded 1 and it worked. i don't know if it wouldn't have worked if i hadn't installed it coz i installed it before launching the game.. BTW it worked on my vostro 1700

 

yep I downloaded the patch. Im not trying to play actually, im just trying to watch record games

 

Which Age of Empires is this? 1, 2 + Conquerers, or 3?

2 and 3 should work just fine on Vista and your machine.

 

the conquerors, and its on XP actually

 

Hmm...

Which driver version are you using? Oh, and also, what are the specs of your notebook?

 

i tried dell stock 169.04 169.09 174.74.. none work

T7250 core 2 duo 2.0ghz
8600M GT
2gb ram

like i said i think its a problem of my notebook being too fast, because it works fine on battery

 

I wouldn't think you're notebook being fast has anything to do with it.

More likely then not, it's a software/driver problem. Try reinstalling Windows. Make sure it's all up-to-date. As well as AoE. Be sure all available patches are applied.

 

Then why does the game work if he's on battery?
If the problem were drivers, it wouldn't work on battery either.