Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Forum

Out of Sync error when attempting to play the game in the multiplayer area. Works completely fine elsewhere.

It's a DLL Problem, if you follow this you'll be able to play online

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamPlay/comments/dysg89/age_of_empires_ii_definitive_edition_now_working/

I get the same error. I’m on macOS Big Sur. Not sure I understand the instructions above since that seems targeted to Linux or am I wrong?

The game played perfectly offline, no errors whatsoever but as soon as a multiplayer online match starts I get the “Out of Sync Error”

Any way to fix this?

I get the same thing with an Intel Mac Big Sur - 10 seconds into a multiplayer game - poof out of sync.

I'll try the above reddit link when I get some time. To get AOE at least running and playing single player without problems -- set up W10 64 bit bottle, install steam, install DXVK (builtin) - and I had to restart Mac OS -- then, make sure to add SKIPINTRO to game properties launch options and it at least does single player.

Hello.

The same problem here on my Macbook Intel I7 with Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91).
Any solution?

Thanks

Hi all,

We do have a bug filed for this issue, and a developer has taken a look, but unfortunately it's a tricky problem to solve.

Best,
Meredith

Hello,

Same probleme here on my macbook M1.

Any news ?

Guys, it's been seven months from the first post.
Don't you think it is frustrating for users especially for those who paid for your product?

Thanks
Martin

Hi Martin,

I'm not exactly sure what sort of response you're looking for with that question? We fully recognize that all gaps in our functionality are frustrating for our customers. Some problems in Wine are very tough to overcome, and for that very reason we never promise that everything will work within CrossOver.

This desync problem with this game is particularly nasty: this game is using multiple functions that are causing a desync, and we have not yet found a way to overcome it with Wine. We are hearing about it both from our Proton users and CrossOver users, and our developers have been working on it but still unfortunately have not been able to find a solution that will account for all of the quirks of this game.

Best,
Meredith

I'm getting this problem too.

I just purchased crossover as I'm having a blast playing AOE2: DE on my macbook, but being able to play online would be the cherry on the cake.

Mac OS Big Sur 11.4

Same problem. I tried the reddit solution and it works, BUT freezes for like 0.1 seconds every time you select a building or military unit (not villagers lol).
Also, the longer gets the game, worse performance you get. Almost unplayable. I don't know if this is related or not with this solution for multiplayer though. (The freezing problem aparently is related, acording to my offline testing)

I have tried Crossover to find if gets better performance than Porting Kit but it's exactly the same for this game, so...

Hello there. I am wondering if there is any update on this particular issue.

I had trialed CrossOver on my Macbook Air M1 back in May and encountered this issue. I figured I would wait a few months and see if it could get straightened out before diving into purchasing. I went ahead and took advantage of today's savings on a 1 year license, and re-installed everything to try this again, and found that the error still persists.

Do you expect to be able to resolve this bug, or is multiplayer on AOE2:DE going to be a no-go on CrossOver M1?

Thanks for your work on this!

Hi folks,

Our developers are continuing to look at the issue, but unfortunately we are still not sure if we'll be able to ever fix it :/ This game has some very idiosyncratic behavior for detecting a desync, which makes this a really tricky problem to solve. This is a definitely a priority of us, but it remains to be seen if we can fix it.

Best,
Meredith

One thing you may find interesting is that multiplayer seems to works fine between 2 m1 macs. I've played several games locally, via 2 steam accounts with separate licenses of the game, without any problems whatsoever, but I just tried to play a friend the next state over and the game crashed with that "out of sync error" after about 10 seconds of play no matter what game settings were used.

Only differences we could pin down were:

1. He was running natively on a windows machine.
2. Latency? He was about 150 miles away, but the ping reported (23) was about the same playing him or playing locally.

We had both installed the "Enhanced Graphics Pack" and were on the same version.

I'm going to try experimenting some more, but thought I would share.

I've encountered the same problem today with out of Sync Error when trying to play multiplayer with my friends.

I made it work and won two ranked games right afterwords using this guide with some modifications which is listed under the first link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/k3ac4y/aoe2de_on_osx_using_crossover/

OBS
1) I encountered an error with the "brew command". Check this link to fix that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-R1HUuEa8

2) When it says: "download: https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe"
Download the file directly from microsoft instead: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52685
otherwise you get an error.

Im on a macbook pro 14" 2021 base-model using the Monterey 12.0.1. operating system.

it seems to occur on the network layer.
i also noticed flaky connection downloading games, on steam. from where i installed aoe2 de on.

the connection dropped to 8kb one time. speaking of a solid 5mb/s connection.
is there a reporting functionality, logs which help you debug that issue?
i am to a frustrated customer expected to find joy in a game.

Hi Benjamin,

We do have logs of the issue, and our developers can reproduce and debug in house. Sadly, this game is doing some very idiosyncratic things, and while this is a priority for our development team, we have not found a solution yet.

Best,
Meredith

I think I'm having the same issue. 5 seconds into every online game, it throws an "Out Of Sync" message my way and crashes. Any help would be much appreciated.

Game Age of Empires when playing requires players to have strategic thinking and creativity that I like very much

Hey Guys any news with this Out of Sync situation?

Macbook M1 Big Sur

Hey everyone,
This guide has worked for me on my m1 MacBook air 8gb.

https://laur.uk/2021/04/23/age-of-empires-2-definitive-edition-aoe2de-on-m1-mac-crossover/

Hi folks,

I just published a CrossTie for this game that will go live tomorrow. In our testing, it seems to make multiplayer work well, but it's possible that it doesn't fully fix the issue. I'd appreciate hearing if anyone else has any luck :)

Best,
Meredith

No, Meredith, unfortunately didn't solve the problem.

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Hi folks,

I just published a CrossTie for this game that will go live tomorrow. In our testing, it seems to make multiplayer work well, but it's possible that it doesn't fully fix the issue. I'd appreciate hearing if anyone else has any luck :)

Best,
Meredith

Hi Meredith! How would I download a CrossTie or update it to check? New to Crossover but experiencing the multiplayer out of sync error for AOEII DE.

Meredith,

I, too, am interested in trying this CrossTie; however, I am also new to this and am having trouble figuring out where to find it and how to install it. Can you please give some guidance on how to install it?

Thanks for your continued efforts to resolve this issue.

Hi folks,

It sounds like my changes don't actually do anything (we must have just gotten lucky while testing). But if you search for "Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition" in CrossOver and select that profile to install, you should be testing my changes.

Best,
Meredith

Meredith,

I just reinstalled the game via a fresh bottle, and was just able to successfully play two multiplayer games in a row without the out of sync issue. One game was hosted by me, the other hosted by someone else (not sure if this distinction matters these days). I am on a Macbook Air M1.

So far, so good. Cautiously optimistic.

Thanks,
Jason

Hi Jason,

Woohoo! Hopefully our changes did something then, for at least some people.

I've love to hear if other people can replicate the success Jason and our QA team had :-)

Best,
Meredith

Has anyone else been able to get it to work with the new crosstie? I am still getting a sync error but not sure if I am doing something wrong.

(SOLVED)
Hello guys.

After some years searching for an answer, finally found one that made the trick.
Just followed this guy's instructions and it worked first try

https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/k3ac4y/aoe2de_on_osx_using_crossover/

hope it can do the trick for you too

I'm on Linux and still looking for an option for me to play AoE2.

I tried this but didn work:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamPlay/comments/dysg89/age_of_empires_ii_definitive_edition_now_working/

pleas help if you have any other sugestions.

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Hi Jason,

Woohoo! Hopefully our changes did something then, for at least some people.

I've love to hear if other people can replicate the success Jason and our QA team had :-)

Best,
Meredith

Hi Meredith, I used CrossOver's free trial to test out the AOE 2 DE bottle, and multiplayer works without a hitch for me too. I have an M1 Max 14" Mac Pro.

I am having some trouble with Steam window display in the bottle (only black image for "large mode" in Steam), and for some reason the game only detects that my max display resolution is 1512 x 982. Enabling the game's HD graphics update makes it worse by forcing a very tight zoom on gameplay.

But these are issues are relatively minor compared to the working multiplayer option. It convinced me to buy a year's license. Thanks so much!

Peter Forbes wrote:

Meredith Johnson wrote:

Hi Jason,

Woohoo! Hopefully our changes did something then, for at least some people.

I've love to hear if other people can replicate the success Jason and our QA team had :-)

Best,
Meredith

Hi Meredith, I used CrossOver's free trial to test out the AOE 2 DE bottle, and multiplayer works without a hitch for me too. I have an M1 Max 14" Mac Pro.

I am having some trouble with Steam window display in the bottle (only black image for "large mode" in Steam), and for some reason the game only detects that my max display resolution is 1512 x 982. Enabling the game's HD graphics update makes it worse by forcing a very tight zoom on gameplay.

But these are issues are relatively minor compared to the working multiplayer option. It convinced me to buy a year's license. Thanks so much!

Hi Peter,

I'm so happy to hear it's working for you :D

We are looking into the issues with the Steam library showing up as black. Unfortunately, it's only happening for some people, so it's really tough to narrow down :/

All the best,
Meredith

Hi Meredith,

I have downloaded the trial version of crossover. I am facing the same issue. I am new to Crossover, Do i need to install other files in the bottle to resolve this. Mac os ventura 13.1 .

Ajay Chowdhary wrote:

Hi Meredith,

I have downloaded the trial version of crossover. I am facing the same issue. I am new to Crossover, Do i need to install other files in the bottle to resolve this. Mac os ventura 13.1 .

Hi there,

Did you search for "Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition" in CrossOver and select that profile to install? That should fix the multiplayer out of sync error.

Best,
Meredith

Hello Meredith, I've tried to install the game using the profile in CrossOver but unfortunately I am not still not able to play multiplayer games. Any workaround please?

I am using CrossOver v22.1.0 + Steam + AoE II DE on a M1 Ventura 13.1, also getting the "sync out" error while playing multiplayer. It pops up after a few minutes already. I have played in a multiplayer setting before, using Crossover v. 19 I guess on Big Sur.

Any updates? :)

Update: I reinstalled everything and followed this guide; it works.

Hi all,

I just wanted to confirm that I followed that reddit guide too and after replacing the UCRTBASE file it works!! I've been playing multiplayer on my mac without any out of sync issues

Hi! I just started a Code Vieawers Trial, it seems it didn't work for me either, got out of sync i a few minutes. The above reddit link works, but I'm unsure if this introduces lag. My 2020 Macbook M1 (running OSX Monterey) is running very hot. Here are the instructions:

<< 1. Install DXVK into the bottle >>
Open CrossOver, you'll see the "Bottles" in a list on the left pane. Right click on "Age of Empoiers II HD" and click on
"Install Software Into AOE 2 HD.." Search and select "DXVK (Builtin)".

<< 2. Select DXVK backed >>
Right click on "Age of Empires II HD" in the list of Bottles as before, select "Settings" -> "DXVK Backend for D3D11"

<< 3. Install Xcode >>
Open a terminal and write: "xcode-select --install"

<< 4. Install Homebrew >>
Go to https://brew.sh/ and follow the instructions.

<< 5. Install cabextract >>
Open a terminal and type "brew install cabextract".

<< 5. Download vc_redist.exe >>
There are two links:
"https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe"
and
"https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/3/F/93FCF1E7-E6A4-478B-96E7-D4B285925B00/vc_redist.x64.exe"

Only the second worked for me, first one gave error a10: no valid cabinets found.

<< 6. Extract DLL file >>
First open a terminal and type "cabextract vc_redist.x64.exe". This will extract a number of files. Then type "cabextract a10".
You should find the file "UCRTbase.dll" in the created folder.

<< 7. Replace UCRTbase.dll >>
Right click on "Age of Empires II HD" in the list of Bottles as before, then "Open C: Drive". Go to drive_c/windows/system32 and drop the UCRTbase.dll there. It should overwrite the existing file.

<< 7. Configure libraries >>
Click on "Age of Empires II HD" in the list of Bottles, on the right pane you should have a "Wine Configuration" button. Click on it and got to the "Libraries" Tab. Type in "concrt140" in "New override for library:" click on "Add". Make sure it is set to "native,builtin". Repeat the procedure using "ucrtbase".

<< 8. Launch parameter >>
Open Steam, click on Age Of Empires 2 HD in your library, click on the cog wheel to the right then "Properties". Type in "SKIPINTRO" in the "LAUNCH OPTIONS" field. Close the window.

Age of empires should now run, click on F11 two times to see FPS (you need to disable "Show Desktop F11" in Keyboard->Shortcuts->Mission Control). Are you getting any lag?

Any update?

I am on M1 with Sonoma. I also downloaded trial. It runs with nice resolution and everything but... out of sync error.

Of course I replaced this DLL and I also used the DXVK Backend for D3D11. But still out of sync error. All else seems fine.

Any idea? It's now >2 years later

Having this error on Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71) with Crossover 24.

Tried every setting combination, restarted, reinstalled the bottle, did the ucrtbase tutorial above. Nothing works.

A bit frustrated because I just renewed my license and got a lifetime one....