I recently bought a new gaming computer, so that the rest of my games would be playable. Empire Earth 3 was one of them. It used to crash at certain points in the game. The old computer has Intel Integrated graphics. This new system has an AMD Graphics card plus AMD inegrated graphics. Empire Earth peformed terribly on the new system! Buildings and bridges would flicker and eventually become invisible. The units would also become invisible. I downgraded the graphics drivers, so that Cossacks 3 would display properly. It seemed to improve Empire Earth 3 slightly, but it eventually became horrible again. I read somewhere that I could switch to the on board internal graphics. I discovered how to do that, and suddenly Empire Earth 3 displays perfectly! Why? Why on Earth would that game perform perfectly with inferior integrated graphics? This does not make sense to me. If anyone has an answer, please share it with me.

I personally would blame the Intel 12 / 13th CPU for that.

Generally, Intel doesn't support DirectX 9 natively, and uses wrappers such as D3D9on12. You can't really control it, as their integrated drivers simply lack in components.

I wrote a little bit more about these problems on this page: https://forum.ee2.eu/viewtopic.php?t=5672

This is related to Empire Earth 2 (which also faced some issues with Intel GPUs), and as solution I included a self-compiled, open-source version of D3D9On12 in Unofficial Patch 1.5.

Is your computer a laptop or a desktop PC? If it's a laptop, it usually has only a single HDMI output, so even if you use the AMD card, it still goes through the Intel card which forces D3D9On12 and God knows what else. If your monitor is connected directly to the AMD HDMI port, then the problem might be different.

If you own Empire Earth 2 on Gog, could you please install it together with Unofficial Patch 1.5 and test how it behaves there? Then if there's a problem, you could enable the "Temporary fix" (linked above) and see if it solved the problem. If it did, you could copy some DLLs over from folder "Unofficial Patch Files\DX9SupportForUP15": "d3d9on12.dll" and "dxbcSigner.dll" to your root folder of Empire Earth 3.

I might reply slower on Gog forums, so if you get EE2 with 1.5 installed, you can contact me using the "Support Chat" button in the launcher, then I could guide you step by step what to do. Or if you're interested, you can join our Discord. There's probably no EE3 community existing (the game is considered as a bad one by EE-series fans), so unfortunately you can't get a direct support regarding this game from fans.

Thanks for the reply, but I already fixed the problem by switching to AMD integrated graphics. My question was why does the game work fine with AMD integrated graphics, but it works terribly with the regular AMD 6400 graphics card?
I never had any problems with your game. I have played it on my old system with and without your 1.5 patch. It always worked well. I am testing it now on my new system. It seems to work well on this system also.

Hmmm, so it's an AMD computer, not Intel.

The only difference I can think of, is that EE3 requires NVIDIA PhysX to be installed. Maybe the new AMD drivers have problems with it on their dedicated graphics cards. Can you try to install (probably the newest available version) from: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/physx/physx-9-19-0218-driver/ and check?

I had an older version of that driver installed already. It was apparently installed with another game. I updated it like you said, but started having more problems. I completely uninstalled the Nvidia drivers. The game crashes constantly now unless I switch to the lowest settings. I was required to copy a file named, PhysXLoader.dll into the Empire Earth 3 directory in order to play the game.

I decided to reinstall the Nvidia drivers, which you recommended. I noticed that the PhysXLoader.dll file, which I previously had in the Empire Earth 3 directory was a tad bit older than the newest drivers supplied, so I copied the newer version into the Empire Earth 3 directory. The most recent game I had saved is still immediately crashing as soon as I start it on the default graphics setting. If I set it to the lowest setting, it plays fine. It is the Crusader Map. I tested a previous saved game on default settings, and the game still works fine! It is the Gulf Crisis Map. This is baffling! Apparently, the Gulf Crisis map can be played with good graphics settings, but the Crusader Map must be played with the worst settings.

Hmm, so maybe it's better to use the PhysXLoader.dll that comes with the game? Are you still able to play it with no issues on the Integrated card?

I remember that EE3 installer (from DVD) have that PhysX installer. Once it installs, the game runs fine and it's not needed to move a .dll to the game folder.

I wonder if Gog maybe added some extra DirectX wrapper with the recent update, that causes more harm than help? Do you have any other .exe files in your EE3 folder, other than EE3.exe? If yes, could you please list them?

It did not come with the game. Apparently, when I originally bought the game from GOG, I had problems making the game function. I must have discovered somewhere to put a PhysX file in the directory. I had the game saved on a compact disc. The PhysX file was also on the disc. I wrote a note on it to place the file in the game directory.
After I switched to the integraded card, the game was fine at first when I was playing the Gulf Crisis map. When I played the Crusader Map, the game started crashing. EE3AutoRun.exe
MCELauncher.exe
unins000.exe

Sorry for late reply. I'm forgetting to check the Gog forums frequently.

It seems like there's no DirectX configuration .exe in your game directory, so it's probably not bloated with the Gog wrapper, so it's fine.

I think PhysXLoader is installed together with Nvidia drivers, so Nvidia owners might not have the issue with .dlls.

The game will also load the PhysXLoader.dll from C:/Windows/system32 (or C:\Windows\SysWOW64) folder so it's not always required to paste that .dll to the game folder. Maybe you could try removing it from the game folder and see if it gives any errors on game launch?

Meanwhile, check the new Realistic Europe map for EE2. Screenshots: https://forum.ee2.eu/viewtopic.php?t=5719

You might actually enjoy it more than EE3.

I already removed the PhysXLoader file from the game directory, because it seemed redundant. It was supplied with the Nvidia drivers, which you had me install. The removal of the file did not affect the game. It still crashes on the Crusader map and the Tradewind map.

Yep. The game still crashes on the Crusader map, Mirage map, and the Tradewind map unless I switch them to the worst settings.

Yep, still crashes. I sent report to AMD with tool.