How to improve FPS in Age of Empires IV (PC)
Age of Empires IV runs on an evolution of Relic's Essence Engine, the same technological lineage as Company of Heroes. While it isn't a visually demanding game for the GPU, its massive sieges with hundreds of units (soldiers, archers, battering rams, trebuchets, siege towers) generate CPU load spikes from pathfinding, collision, and simultaneous order calculations, especially in 4v4 matches with high population. The competitive 1v1 scene prioritizes a stable, consistent framerate over visual effects, since micro-stutters during a decisive battle can cost you the match. This guide covers the settings that actually move the needle in AoE IV, both for competitive players chasing a stable 144+ FPS and for those who want to enjoy the historical campaigns without frame drops in large battles.
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Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +41% free FPS.
Shadow Resolution
Dynamic shadows from hundreds of units on screen are one of the biggest performance drains in large sieges. Lowering shadow quality reduces the shadow map resolution without eliminating shadows entirely.
Vegetation and Decoration Quality
Grass, rock, and terrain decoration density is rendered across the entire visible map, even in zones with no units. Reducing it frees up CPU and GPU without affecting tactical map readability.
FPS Limit
AoE IV can generate widely varying FPS between menus, base camp, and massive sieges. Setting a limit matching your monitor avoids unnecessary CPU/GPU overheating and reduces tearing without V-Sync's input lag.
Particle Effects
Smoke from burning buildings, dust from cavalry charges, and trebuchet impact effects multiply exponentially in large battles. It's one of the settings with the highest return during the game's critical moments.
Exclusive Fullscreen Mode
Borderless Windowed mode adds Windows composition overhead that especially penalizes CPU spikes during massive battles. Exclusive mode avoids that overhead.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Terrain Draw Distance
On large 4v4 maps, reducing how much distant terrain gets rendered at full detail helps keep the framerate stable when the camera is zoomed far out while controlling multiple army groups.
Anti-aliasing
AoE IV's TAA has a non-trivial rendering cost and also introduces slight motion blur that makes it harder to distinguish small units at maximum game speed (2x-Fast). Lowering it improves both FPS and sharpness.
Texture Quality
On GPUs with little VRAM, textures on High can cause texture streaming and microstutter when many distinct unit and building models are on screen at once. On cards with 8GB+ the impact is minimal.
Render Resolution (Scaling)
Slightly reducing the internal render resolution without touching UI resolution offers a notable FPS gain. Especially useful in large sieges where the GPU shares load with CPU spikes.
Water and Surface Reflections
Reflections on rivers and lakes on maps like Confluence or Nagari have a rendering cost disproportionate to their real visual impact during a match played at combat speed.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable Low Latency Mode on Ultra in the NVIDIA panel to minimize input lag during combat clicks and fast micromanagement in sieges.
- •Disable forced Ambient Occlusion from the NVIDIA control panel if you have it enabled globally; AoE IV already manages its own AO and forcing it from the driver only adds cost with no perceptible visual benefit from an isometric view.
- •Keep Game Ready drivers updated, especially after large AoE IV seasonal patches, since Relic and NVIDIA have published specific optimizations for scenes with high unit counts.
AMD
- •Enable Radeon Anti-Lag to reduce input latency in critical fights, especially relevant in competitive 1v1 where every click counts.
- •If you use an APU or integrated Radeon GPU, prioritize lowering Effects Quality and Shadow Quality before anything else, since they have the biggest impact on framerate in large battles with integrated hardware.
- •Check that the Adrenalin driver's power mode is set to "Performance" and not silent/power-saving mode, which can limit GPU clocks during long matches.
Sistema
- •AoE IV is mostly a CPU-limited game: prioritize a processor with good single-thread performance over a powerful GPU, since pathfinding and AI for hundreds of units run on the CPU.
- •Close recording/streaming overlays (OBS, Discord, GeForce Experience) during competitive matches: spectator mode and replay recording add extra CPU load especially noticeable in large sieges.
- •Install the game on an SSD (preferably NVMe) to reduce match load times and avoid microstutters when loading new unit models and assets during fast skirmishes. Update Windows and your motherboard chipset, since CPU-heavy RTS games benefit from thread-scheduler improvements, especially on CPUs with hybrid cores (Intel 12th gen onward).
5. Known game issues
Severe FPS drops in late-game sieges in 3v3/4v4 matches
When the combined population of all players approaches the cap (200+ per player) and there are simultaneous fights in several parts of the map, framerate can drop drastically even on powerful systems, because the engine recalculates pathfinding for hundreds of units in real time. Lowering Shadow Quality and Effects Quality partially mitigates the problem, but the underlying bottleneck is the CPU.
Microstutter when using spectator mode or reviewing replays
Some players report periodic hitching when watching replays of long matches or using live spectator mode, especially when fast-forwarding quickly across the map. This happens because the game recalculates the full simulation instead of playing back a recorded video.
High single-core CPU usage on large maps
The engine doesn't distribute pathfinding and AI load evenly across all available cores, so a processor with fewer cores but better per-core performance can outperform a CPU with more cores but lower frequencies.
6. Frequently asked questions
Is Age of Empires IV more demanding on the CPU or the GPU?▾
Does Age of Empires IV have DLSS, FSR, or XeSS?▾
Which settings should I lower first if my FPS drops in large battles?▾
Is it worth playing at 144 FPS or more in competitive Age of Empires IV?▾
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Calculate FPS for Age of Empires IV →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →