direct3D acceleration is not available in Windows 7

Anonymous
2011-04-17T10:21:18+00:00

Dear all,

I've just installed a game in Windows 7. However, after installing, i couldn't start the game. An error came up like this:

"Could not find any compatible Direct3D devices. Please make sure that the correct graphics driver is installed on your system, and Direct3D acceleration is enabled".

I did come to the DirectX Diagnostic Tool to check. In System tab, i found that DirectX version is DirectX 11. In Display tab, all three DirectX features "DirectDraw, Direct3D and AGP Texture acceleration" are all not available. And i couldn't find the "Enable" button to activate. It's not like Windows XP that you can find "Enable" and "Disable" buttons. It appeared nothing here but "Not available" line.

I've already installed DirectX 11 SDK and DirectX 11 End User Runtimes. I also try to update graphics driver (however, windows 7 announced that the current driver is up to date).

I'm using Laptop Compaq Presario CQ42 262TU; Intel® Core™ i3-370M (2*2.40GHz, 4Threads);Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD 500.

PLEASE HELP ME WITH THIS SITUATION!!!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Gaming

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2011-08-05T15:36:29+00:00

I spent over 5 hours on this one and finaly figured it out. 

Use REGEDIT and change the "SoftwareOnly" key from "1" to "0" in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Direct3D\Drivers

and then reboot the system and it should work.

The problem was the DXDIAG under 64bit worked fine but it was disabled for 32bit programs.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-14T19:42:52+00:00

    I've had a problem, which I think is simillar to the one in the question. I'm running windows 7 64 bit. After I clicked on shortcut to my game, a window opens, in which I can click "play" but when I clicked it, a message appeared: "failed to initialize Direct3D with curent settings."

    I found a solution here: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_%282013%29#Force_DirectX_9_renderer_on_DirectX_11_systems

    In case the link is broken, or wathever, here is the description from that page:

    1. Launch the Registry Editor (open the Start screen/Start menu, click on Run and type regedit into the window that apperas and hit Enter).
    2. (on the left) Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Crystal Dynamics\Tomb Raider\Graphics
    3. Modify RenderAPI value (on the rigth) to 9.

    Note: Revert to 0 for DX11, anything else will result in DX11 renderer with some DX11 features disabled.

    So, it simes that the problem was that win 7 supports DirectX 11, but the game wanted to run on DirectX 9. After 3 days of googling the solution, I've found a bunch of forums that helped some poeple, but not me. After I did this 3 steps and like it is written in Note above, everything that has a "DX11" in the name, I've put to 0. Then I run the game and it worked!

    I should probably say this too: people usualy say, it's not wise to change stuff in the registry, so if you are going to do this, you are doing this on your own risk. (I did not have any problems with the game or windows so far).

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-09T12:43:48+00:00

    turning what into "0" in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Direct3D\Drivers"?

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-06-16T22:52:15+00:00

    Thank you MonsterFastener IT HELPED A LOT. It enabled the DIRECTX FEATURES, it CHANGED THE SCREEN RESOLUTION, AND IT'S VERY GOOD

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-06-01T14:32:14+00:00

    I am running Win8 and had the same problem. Rightclick und the .exe file and choose to treat compatibility issues. Took recommended (Winxp SP3) and worked like a charm

    Worth a try!

    im trying to run terraria and it appears i cant use compatibility

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