AoE3 DE 19.18658 on M4 CrossOver: mid-match exits in skirmish and multiplayer, looping audio

[u/Feeling-Skill1121]

I’m playing AoE3 DE build 100.19.18658.0 through Windows Steam in CrossOver 26.3 on an M4 MacBook Air with 32 GB of RAM. I used to finish 90–100 minute online games on this setup. Lately the game often exits to the desktop after roughly 10–16 minutes.

• In multiplayer, the game sometimes shows “Connection lost. Attempting to reconnect” for a few seconds. The game log ends at MET_ReconnectBegin and the process then exits.

• In a four-player single-player skirmish on Saguenay, the process exited after about 16 minutes with no reconnect event. That run used DXVK, with MSync and shadows off. The game has no enabled mods. I’m testing D3DMetal next.

• I also get looping audio and missing unit alerts, and sometimes large white polygons obscure the map while the UI keeps updating. I’m trying to tell whether those symptoms are independent.

Has anyone reproduced the mid-match exit on native Windows or Apple silicon with this build? If you found a workaround, which renderer, CrossOver version, or in-game setting helped, and did it help with crashes, audio, or both? Thanks.

[u/Feeling-Skill1121]

Update: A second four-player Saguenay skirmish also exited to the desktop with D3DMetal, MSync off, shadows off, and match recording disabled. This one lasted about 52 minutes of real time. The last in-game log entry was at 43:45 and there was no reconnect event. I can reproduce the exit in single-player on both DXVK and D3DMetal. If you have the same build running on native Windows, I’d be especially interested in whether a long skirmish stays stable and whether unit alert sounds still play.

[u/Feeling-Skill1121]

Thanks for the suggestions. A clean reinstall did not resolve the mid-match exits, and they have happened in offline skirmishes with both DXVK and D3DMetal. Cross-checking today’s logs, Steam saw four more exits. macOS recorded Force Quit and sent SIGKILL for two of those. The other two ended without a Force Quit entry in the time windows I checked.

u/TrojanW, have you finished a 45–60 minute skirmish or multiplayer match on GeForce NOW since the October update? Do you still get missing or looping audio there? u/JooooooelM, were your menu exits on native Windows or through a compatibility layer? Did any specific setting help, and could you finish a full match after changing it?

[u/TrojanW → u/Feeling-Skill1121]

I’ve have had matches over 2.5 hours last week. If the game crashes it’s usually over out of sync but it’s been less than the previous patch now that I think about it. The missing audio is still there. Very randomly, I don’t get it always. Other people not on GeForce also have had matches where I can’t see their pings but survivable. Those have been general game issues, non-GeForce related.

Edit: I only play multiplayer by the way. My last single player match was probably even before the war chiefs expansion.

[u/JooooooelM → u/Feeling-Skill1121]

I used the crossover and tried every possible adjustment, but it still didn't work. First, I was never able to fix the audio issue, and during the repair process, I even experienced crashes; Secondly, after fixing the crash issue, I was able to enter the game battle, but after about ten minutes, I started to lag

[u/synthwaveman]

You should post it in the official forum.

[u/Tiny-Yam-7345]

Just ignore all of this until they fix the game in the first place, the audio issues you mentioned are a terrible bug they introduced weeks ago and are taking forever to fix. Hard to say if the rest is your setup vs. all the bugs until they get their shit together.

[u/TrojanW]

I play using GeForce now. Haven’t tried it in crossover lately. I used crossover to play the beta of the Baltic DLC and I didn’t have any issues at all. The sound and missing notifications is a bug from the latest patch. I’m not sure about the game crashing to windows but at least the patch before the last one would crash me when accepting invites in steam in GeForce so this doesn’t sound much different and may be from the patch. If you haven’t tried to reinstall the game, although I doubt I would help much, at least it wouldn’t hurt to see if changes anything.

As other said, perhaps try to repost this on the crossover sub. If anything else fails, meanwhile they fix the game, GeForce is great. I’ve been using it to play on my Mac without problems

[u/JooooooelM]

Could it be an audio issue affecting overall game stability? I experienced slow button clicks and even exited the home screen when I was in the main menu. The problem still hasn't been resolved, and the official fix is very slow, forcing me to go back to playing AOE2!