"DirectX" Error

Deliond - Heavens Tear
Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
edited December 2009 in Support Desk
My girlfriend's been a member of this game for years now, and dragged me on at one point. As you can tell by my avatar, I've played enough that I was level 32 on one of my characters, and have a few other random characters... I've played off and on from time to time, depending on whether or not I really felt like playing an RPG, and have never had any problems running the game before. Even the machine I'm using now -- I have gone through several computers -- has ran the game before. After my girlfriend acknowledged the Rising Tide expansion was up and active, I decided to return to play the new classes to see what they were like, and see the new areas.

However, as soon as I patched up -- which took as long a time as I remembered every update to take -- I found myself encountering a repeated error.

4197263663_6cd10557e6_o.jpg

Just for your information, I do have the East Asian Language Pack installed -- it doesn't make a difference -- but before you assume from the appearance, I'm running Windows XP (SP2), not Vista nor 7, though I do have 7 installed on a dual-boot setup.

Now, I figured at first this was probably just some random error, so I clicked 'Verify' to make sure when it was downloading the patch files, that it didn't mess up somewhere along the way. Strangely enough, it verified everything, and it assumed it to all be in working order; that apparently wasn't the problem I had. From there, I decided to check my DirectX Diagnostic Tool and make sure nothing had been tampered with somehow, but from what I could tell, it was all quite in good condition. I've been playing WoW, Torchlight, UT2k4, Left 4 Dead, and other games without any issues either, many of which I run maxed out at all times, like I do with PW as well. See images below.

4198016638_9a8491eac2_o.png
4197263689_b9bbb7e999_o.png

I've run the game on this very PC, including graphics card, before, so I don't see why it wouldn't wreck. I admit, I am quite puzzled by DirectDraw being unavailable and that the Direct3D 7 test failed while 8 and 9 worked fine (not shown on the image, though), but I don't see how that would be a problem. The only thing that confused me was the driver showing as 6.14.0010.6936, while the Device Manager properties for my video card shows 8.600.0.0. See below.

4198016660_09bd577926_o.png

I've updated my graphics drivers as far as they'll allow, and this is one of the last AGP cards existing -- I'm not wasting money buying a brand new motherboard, processor, video card, and everything else just to play this one game, regardless of how good a game PW might be -- so if the video card is the reason, I'll simply deal with it and not play...


I've tried some fix someone here on the forums suggested, I forget who and am too lazy to check Google or my history to remember who it was, suggesting to rename two .ini files -- only one of which actually existed to begin with -- and I made sure elementclient.exe existed. I've restarted my computer just to be certain and verified the client again, no matter what I try, I still get this same error.

So, perhaps anyone out there could help me discover exactly what this error means, and how I can fix it?
Post edited by Deliond - Heavens Tear on

Comments

  • FayteHeart - Sanctuary
    FayteHeart - Sanctuary Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Here: If Anyone Can Translate, We Might Be Just A Step Closer To Figuring Out This Problem.. My Girlfriend Is Having This Same Issue, And Nothing Has Gotten Us Closer To Solving The Issue, I've Been Working On This The Entire Day Now, And Some Professional Help Would Be Much Appreciated. Thank You.

    http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=1969301 This Is The Error, Translated From The Regular Jibberish.. If Anyone Could Help, That Would Quite Amazing. <3
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Thanks for posting the translated version. Any one here understand Chinese enough to translate that message to English now? I'd like to know how to fix this problem, it's quite a pain when I'd like to play this game at least once more.
  • XRayWing - Dreamweaver
    XRayWing - Dreamweaver Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Not exactly sure what that error means but seems that it has something to do with DirectX not rendering the required textures requested by PWI executable, something like that happened to me once on my old computer (like 6 years ago) tho i must say the fix isnt soo easy thing to do. DirectX as you know is integrated with Windows and cannot be "Reinstalled" ,yes you can update it but that still doesnt touch the existing direct3d files installed in the folder already therefore some textures based on a specific pixel shader will fail to load,causing it to crash.

    The only way to fix DirectX would be reinstalling windows,a full format or just clean new install of the windows(not upgrade,that would keep the same DX files so the error might not disappear) and then update directx using "dxwebsetup" download (you can google it easily),at least thats how mine got fixed back then.

    Well you can try running dxwebsetup without formatting,who knows maybe microsoft managed to fix those kind of errors.

    In short : First you should download dxwebsetup from the internet(just google it,its easy to find) ,run the setup and after its finished,check PWI again.
    IF it doesnt work,you can download DirectX 10 for WinXP,that might correct issues with textures (tho it aint easy,it will take ya a bit to do it properly) and in desperate measure,format your computer,then your 100% sure it will work.

    Hope it helps out,
    Regards.
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    XRayWing - Dreamweaver wrote: »
    Not exactly sure what that error means but seems that it has something to do with DirectX not rendering the required textures requested by PWI executable, something like that happened to me once on my old computer (like 6 years ago) tho i must say the fix isnt soo easy thing to do. DirectX as you know is integrated with Windows and cannot be "Reinstalled" ,yes you can update it but that still doesnt touch the existing direct3d files installed in the folder already therefore some textures based on a specific pixel shader will fail to load,causing it to crash.

    The only way to fix DirectX would be reinstalling windows,a full format or just clean new install of the windows(not upgrade,that would keep the same DX files so the error might not disappear) and then update directx using "dxwebsetup" download (you can google it easily),at least thats how mine got fixed back then.

    Well you can try running dxwebsetup without formatting,who knows maybe microsoft managed to fix those kind of errors.

    In short : First you should download dxwebsetup from the internet(just google it,its easy to find) ,run the setup and after its finished,check PWI again.
    IF it doesnt work,you can download DirectX 10 for WinXP,that might correct issues with textures (tho it aint easy,it will take ya a bit to do it properly) and in desperate measure,format your computer,then your 100% sure it will work.

    Hope it helps out,
    Regards.

    But there's nothing wrong with DirectX to begin with, that's the thing. I'm able to run Halo 2 for Vista on Windows 7 just fine, and games that require DX9.0c run wonderfully on XP. That's what confuses me so much. I'm not reformatting my PC simply because of Perfect World, it's not worth going through all that. But I'll try running a DirectX update of some sort and see if that fixes it up. I've already run hotfixes and driver updates that could have fixed things, but didn't... And as for DX10 for XP, I'll pass. It was built for Vista and isn't made for XP at all, and is horridly unstable if you try to patch it onto XP. Working with computers for a living and having relatives in Microsoft, I'd rather not tweak things that shouldn't be tweaked.

    And considering the game ran before -- I even have screenshots of me playing it -- it shouldn't have suddenly changed to the point it won't load due to "textures" or "shaders" or something... Especially since DirectX doesn't have textures/shaders of it's own, the game does, DirectX just formats and compiles them. And other games work just fine, so it's not DirectX itself, that's all I know.

    I appreciate the feedback though.
  • XRayWing - Dreamweaver
    XRayWing - Dreamweaver Posts: 12 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Fair Enough, then try to update DirectX ,its all i can say for now until PWI gets out a new patch to fix all the errors in the Expansion pack .

    Meanwhile,try to hang in there mate.

    Regards
    Alex.
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Ran the dxwebsetup.exe from Microsoft's website, there were indeed updates as recent as August '09. However, this didn't fix the profile. I've tried running the game maxed out like I normally do, and with everything minimal as possible, both with and without VSync enabled. I play Windowed, but I even tried Full-screen just in case.

    The game refuses to open. This is not a computer problem nor a video card, this definitely has something to do with Perfect World itself, and needs to be fixed in a patch or hotfix by PWE so that those of us encountering this error can play again.
  • X_Archer_X - Dreamweaver
    X_Archer_X - Dreamweaver Posts: 25 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Hm... i had this issue before 7 days back...
    I managed to fix this by updating my Graphics Card Drivers.
    I noticed you have a ATi graphics Card, which are very known on Updating issues.
    Once a new update has been released, Windows might show Blue Screens that refers to a Graphics Card file.
    Please update your drivers from here, and try again. b:cute
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    X_Archer_X - Dreamweaver wrote: »
    Hm... i had this issue before 7 days back...
    I managed to fix this by updating my Graphics Card Drivers.
    I noticed you have a ATi graphics Card, which are very known on Updating issues.
    Once a new update has been released, Windows might show Blue Screens that refers to a Graphics Card file.
    Please update your drivers from here, and try again. b:cute

    To quote myself:
    Deliond - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    I've updated my graphics drivers as far as they'll allow, and this is one of the last AGP cards existing -- I'm not wasting money buying a brand new motherboard, processor, video card, and everything else just to play this one game, regardless of how good a game PW might be -- so if the video card is the reason, I'll simply deal with it and not play...

    I've already updated as far as possible. There is no newer update or hotfix than the ones I had, which was released the 17th. The game worked before the expansion, and every other game works just fine -- including those requiring DirectX10, which I have on Windows 7.

    Again, I appreciate the feedback, but majority of these replies are suggesting things I've already tried. xD; Working with computers, I tried every obvious and not-so-obvious things to fix this problem, but it's just not working no matter what. The only thing I haven't tried is uninstalling and reinstalling the entire game, which I know would take a long time even with my internet speed. Should I go ahead and try this anyway, and hope for the best?
  • X_Archer_X - Dreamweaver
    X_Archer_X - Dreamweaver Posts: 25 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Also tried installing DX9 run-time files?
    Found @ Microsoft Download Centre.
  • surtr
    surtr Posts: 3,378 Perfect World Employee
    edited December 2009
    I can confirm that the problem lies with DirectDraw being disabled, but I admit I'm at a loss as to why it can't be turned back on. I'm assuming the answer to this will be yes, but just in case are you using an administrator account with adequate permissions to make changes to DirectX?
    ==/Senior QA Lead/==

    Surtr from the south wielding fire
    The gods' swords shine in the darkness, like stars in the night
    Mountains collapse into rubble and fiends shall fall
    Man walks the road to ruin as the sky splits in two
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Surtr wrote: »
    I can confirm that the problem lies with DirectDraw being disabled, but I admit I'm at a loss as to why it can't be turned back on. I'm assuming the answer to this will be yes, but just in case are you using an administrator account with adequate permissions to make changes to DirectX?

    Okay, that actually makes sense. I'm not sure why I don't run into any issues in other games, but perhaps they don't have as specific requirements. I don't know why it's off though, considering it's a very high-end graphics card. But I can also say that it was enabled before, so something has been changed, and it did encounter an issue with DX7 as visible in the screenshot.

    And yes, I'm the only user of this PC, and my account is an administrator both on the XP partition and the 7 partition. I just got back from a friend's house, updated his client, and it worked just fine -- and he's on Windows 7 -- so I'll try to play on Windows 7 and see what happens... If it works, then there's something wrong with my XP drivers, somehow.
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Sorry for the double-post, but, I've gotten a bit more information. I've read online that ATI's Catalyst drivers tend to go haywire on older hardware. Considering the HD 3650 is a pretty high-end card -- the latest builds being what, the HD 5870? -- and my board is still a socket 478 with a Pentium 4, and doesn't support multicore processing at all, I think it's safe to assume I should try loading older drivers. Catalyst 8.2 was released a month after the card was -- card was January 23rd, '08, 8.1 was released on the 16th of the same month; 8.2 was in February -- so I'm going to uninstall all drivers for my card and try that.

    Another thing I did notice is that ATI's website for support & drivers, they show a driver update saying it was on December 17th of '09, the version number is "9.12". However, there's no AGP Hotfix for it, while there was for 9.11. My card is AGP, so should I roll-back to 9.11 and run the AGP Hotfix, and hope it works, and if not, roll all the way back to 8.2? They release driver updates monthly, so they won't have a 9.13 until January, and I'd like to play PW before then. :\
  • vaspas
    vaspas Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    I've been having a lot of trouble with pw and jd but i might have fixed the problem. i have been getting the well known directx error and i might have fixed that. download the web installer update from here

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displayLang=en

    after that verify it,then it should run fine. works for jd and pw BOTH!!!!!! now all of you that have been waiting can play these wonderful games. have a wonderful day.
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    vaspas wrote: »
    I've been having a lot of trouble with pw and jd but i might have fixed the problem. i have been getting the well known directx error and i might have fixed that. download the web installer update from here

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displayLang=en

    after that verify it,then it should run fine. works for jd and pw BOTH!!!!!! now all of you that have been waiting can play these wonderful games. have a wonderful day.

    That's the same thing I said I already updated earlier. DirectX Runtime SDK. I just downloaded it, and it turned up with a (1) in the filename implying I've already downloaded it, and ran it, and it said an equivalent or newer one was found. Guess what? The game still doesn't work.

    It's got something to do with more than DirectX. I'm talking to people from ATI about it and asking if there's something wrong with the card or any way to fix it. I'll post here when I find out.
  • vaspas
    vaspas Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    thats weird. i just did that about an hour ago and my game works fine. i did that on my desktop too and they're (jd=pw) are both working fine. and i've been having this problem with the games for a lonnnngggg while now. so i'll be willing to help you fix this problem so everyone can get full experience out of this kickass game xD lol if you need more help contact me.
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Whatever help you can offer, I'm willing to accept. I appreciate the enthusiasm from everyone here trying to help me fix this, really.

    I actually work with computers for a living, so I'm used to encountering some type of error, and working with game programming some, I'd thought I'd be able to figure simple things like these out. I was smart enough to try nearly everything that made sense, updating drivers, installing official hotfixes, updating DirectX, disabling video hook drivers, making sure the Hardware Acceleration slider was at full in the system properties, everything. I've got both a DXDiag log and a HijackThis log I can post here if it might help out, so should I post them?
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    Deliond - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    Whatever help you can offer, I'm willing to accept. I appreciate the enthusiasm from everyone here trying to help me fix this, really.

    I actually work with computers for a living, so I'm used to encountering some type of error, and working with game programming some, I'd thought I'd be able to figure simple things like these out. I was smart enough to try nearly everything that made sense, updating drivers, installing official hotfixes, updating DirectX, disabling video hook drivers, making sure the Hardware Acceleration slider was at full in the system properties, everything. I've got both a DXDiag log and a HijackThis log I can post here if it might help out, so should I post them?

    Nevermind, I got it! Thanks for all the help guys.

    Though it didn't recognize it immediately, without restarting my computer, I simply disabled the video hook drivers for everything else such as LogMeIn and screen-recording software. Anything that captures the screen, via for video, pictures, or remote desktop, can cause issues with DirectDraw apparently. After updating my drivers all the way, installing all the hotfixes, apparently it just took a while to recognize everything. Anyone who runs into this issue, try everything I've acknowledged trying in this thread, and I hope it works for you. Now I'm off to play!


    Edit: Nevermind, what the hell. It's back again. I tried running the game since it said it was enabled, and it gave me the same message about DirectX, which pissed me off. So I look at DXDiag, and once again, disabled and greyed out. I have NO clue what happened here, why it was enabled for a short period of time, and why it's disabled again now. Computers are beginning to be so frustrating.
  • vaspas
    vaspas Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    the same thing just happened to me it worked for like an hour then just quit. its like wtf. i wonder if its just the program.
  • icyle
    icyle Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    i really accpeat ur help but i tired follow ur from download and i try to fix with my direct x but it seem still not work i think my direct x just disapper something?
  • twotails12
    twotails12 Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    um.. can i play this game because i tired and when it started it just went to the black screen then back to my desktop so here is my stuff , plzz tell me if i can play

    os: mircosoft windows xp sp2
    cpu: intle pentium(R)III coppermine processor with MMX
    RAM: 383
    display card: intel (R) 82810 graphics controller (4MB)

    i know my computer is old but i would like to know if i can plqay
    every time i click start it just turns the screen black then goes to my desktop
  • Deliond - Heavens Tear
    Deliond - Heavens Tear Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited December 2009
    twotails12 wrote: »
    um.. can i play this game because i tired and when it started it just went to the black screen then back to my desktop so here is my stuff , plzz tell me if i can play

    os: mircosoft windows xp sp2
    cpu: intle pentium(R)III coppermine processor with MMX
    RAM: 383
    display card: intel (R) 82810 graphics controller (4MB)

    i know my computer is old but i would like to know if i can plqay
    every time i click start it just turns the screen black then goes to my desktop

    Uhh, 4 MB graphics card is horribly low -- most computers have 32MB cards built in at the least -- but you may be able to increase the aperture size in your BIOS to 32MB possibly, as I have that same on-board graphics controller as well, and that'll be enough to run the game minimally if your other specs support it -- 256MB RAM and 800MHz Pentium III(3) or higher -- but even 32MB is far short of the recommended requirements. Even your RAM is also below recommended requirements, as is your processor.

    You need a 1.5GHz Pentium IV(4), 512MB+ of RAM, and a 128MB 3D Accelerator graphics card, or higher of any to be able to play the game any higher than maxed out without any lag.

    So, you should be able to play, but yeah, not very well at all. My apologies.



    On that note, everyone, I did fix the problem. As I said, if you uninstall any video hook drivers for remote desktop (including Netmeeting), update your video card drivers and DirectX as far as possible -- ATi especially since they update their drivers every month -- and so on, then rebooting your computer entirely -- I don't mean just clicking "restart", I mean shutting it off completely then turning it back on using the actual power button -- it should work again. The only downside is if you use programs like LogMeIn like I do, you'll have to decide which is more important, the game or that program.
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