D3D crash only when using DX11

texarion

First, the system specs.

Acer Aspire M5-583P
Intel core i7-4500U processor
Intel HD 4400 graphics with 1824 MB (shared) memory
8 GB DDR3 ram

Running Windows 10 64 bit (free upgrade from Win 8 it came with.

I have already attempted every version of video drivers I can find with no luck.

I could run DX9 with all graphics at max all day long with absolutely NO problems, even in STFs where the entire screen was basically washed out by all the power effects.

Through lots of trial and error, I have managed to get it to run in DX11, but only by selectively setting things to low/med/off. Basically my settings are at the bare minimum that will allow lighting 2.0 to even be turned on, but I keep it turned off. At these setting, with lighting 2.0 turned off I rarely have D3D crashes, although they do still happen. If I turn lighting 2.0 on....I will get a D3D crash, usually within 2-5 minutes, sometimes after a whopping 10 minutes or so (but rarely), and not so rarely I don't even get past the character selection screen before it happens.

Besides the fact that the game looks absolutely wonderful (to me) with lighting 2.0 and the graphics settings turned up, I have found a few missions that absolutely require lighting 2.0 or you can't see what you are doing, so any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

As this was a "top of the line" gaming laptop when I purchased it, I am really hoping that STO has at least a few other players with this system....and that those players frequent the forums........and that they have figured out what to do.


Edit to add: I have successfully run the game with Dx11, lighting 2.0 on and all graphics settings at max for a bit, and it runs just fine, and looks awesome, right up until the D3D crash

borg0vermind

DX11 is bugged and crashes the game at start or at any time after.

jaguarskx

I would try to update your Intel HD drivers. I use a laptop with a Core i5-4200u and the integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics core to play my secondary STO account. The game has never crashed as a result of a D3D error whether or not I am using Lighting 2.0. Click the following link to go to Intel's website to download the most current driver. Do not download the *.exe version that will automatically install the Intel HD drivers. Most laptops brands will only allow you to download whatever driver they have on their own website. Meaning Acer will likely only allow their own version of the Intel HD 4400 drivers to be installed on their laptops. Instead download the *.zip version.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26229/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-15-40-4th-Gen-?product=81497


You can try the .exe file, but I think you will likely get an error message stating that your laptop does not meet the system requirements.


The steps to manually install Intel HD drivers:

1. Download the zip version of the drivers.
2. Unzip the drivers to a directory. The zip file will contain both audio and graphic subfolders.
3. Right click the Windows Icon and click Control Panel.
4. Click "Hardware and Sound".
5. Click "Device Manager" at the very top.
6. Look for and expand "Display adapters".
7. Right click on "Intel HD 4400" and click Properties.
8. Click on the Driver tab and the Update Driver button.
9. Click "Browse my computer..."
10. Click "Let me pick from a list..."
11. Click on "Have Disk..."
12. Click on "Browse..." then find the folder where you unzipped the Intel drivers to.
13. Double click on the Graphics folder. From there you should see the igdlh64.inf file and click "Open". This will bring you back to the previous window.
14. Click "Okay" and you will be brought back to the previous window, then click the "Next" button. This will start the installation process.
15. Your display may blink once or twice. After the driver has been updated, you can close all the windows that have been opened and delete the Intel drivers you downloaded.

arionisa

@jaguarskx

Thank you. I don't know if it worked yet or not but.....

After downloading the .zip file I noticed it added a "2" to the end of the file name. Sure enough it is the same ones I downloaded and tried back in November. Which jogged my memory, attempting to run setup after unzipping did "nothing", I don't remember if it said I had more current drivers already or that the drivers weren't certified for this system, but I do remember it wouldn't install. I tried the "update drivers routine but I just did browse my computer, went to the main directory where I unzipped it and hit OK....again no luck.

Using your method it actually did install, more than I managed before, so I'm now off to try and play with lighting 2.0 on and see what happens.....

arionisa

Well, 22 minutes then crash. However it did not show a D3D error, game just crashed. Maybe just one of those random crashes that just happened to occur during my testing. Back in to continue testing.

Edit: 45 minutes on second attempt. D3D error. Don't remember ever going that long before without a D3D crash with 2.0 turned on, so it's better than it was anyway.

jaguarskx

@arionisa

Okay. At least that is progress...

The game actually crashed on me last night with a D3D error. But that was the first time I ever got that error message. I got it at the start of the Omega mini-game, but the game remained stable since the crash; I logged out of the game a few hours later.

The screenshot below are the settings I use when testing the Intel HD 4400 in STO with Lighting 2.0 activated. Note that it is for a resolution of 1600x900 with no anti -aliasing. Also, the laptop has 2 sticks of 4GB RAM for a total of 8GB. When there is a pair of RAM sticks installed the RAM will operate at full speed (dual channel) rather than at half speed (single channel). Depending on the game, when RAM is operating in dual channel mode, integrated graphics performance can increase by around 10% - 15%.

arionisa

Awesome. I have today off so as soon as maintenance is over I will go in and match your settings and see how things go.

arionisa

Attempting test now.

Something I never really payed attention to before now. My resolution is at 800x600 and is greyed out, not allowing me to change it. Don't know if it really matters, but I do remember back in the day when running a game in a different resolution than your desktop settings could cause problems.

And shortly after I alt-tabbed out to type the above, D3D crash .... sigh

arionisa

Just an update in case someone is following along for help but not commenting. I found some old posts (like from shortly after game launch) from people that had problems if the game resolution and desktop resolution did not match. Through trial and error, I found that if I set to full screen instead of windowed maximized, it then let me change my resolution, and once I changed it, going back to windowed maximized it remained at the new settings although it did grey out again, locking the setting.

I am currently getting extreme lag/low FPS, making it tough to test. Likely a LOT of people on right now due to the end of maintenance. Further updaates as I get them.

arionisa

Annnd.. sigh

Got about 45 minutes before D3D crash first time, but a lot of that was spent flying across the galaxy at warp 5-6. Second test, while actually doing combat, 10 minutes.

But hey, even with lighting 2.0 off, having my resolution a lot higher than 800x600 means the game still looks a lot better lol

jaguarskx

Not sure why the game is crashing. Perhaps it is an issue with the Windows 10 upgrade. You may want to do a clean reinstall of Windows 10. You need to backup any important files on the C: drive though because doing so will wipe all files on that drive.

This will mean Windows 10 will need to download and install updates for itself which can take some time. You will also need to reinstall programs that you use as well and you will need to reinstall the Intel HD drivers. Assuming you have STO on the D drive, you will not have to re-install slow (unless maybe you use the Steam version). STO does not make any changes to the Windows Registry which is why the game can be launched without the need to reinstall the game.

Click the following link on instructions for reinstalling Windows 10. You want to scroll down and read "Option Two".

http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-to-clean-install-windows-10/

arionisa

OUCH ! ! !

676GB worth of stuff on this HDD...... then again, I rarely use a lot of it any more. I've got an external HDD or two laying around somewhere I can copy what I really need to keep to.

I've actually been thinking about something like that, but I wasn't sure how/if I could actually do a fresh Win10 install since this was an upgrade from Win 8, and the amount of work needed to back up and then restore all my stuff if I did do it kept my lazy butt from even researching it. Now that you sent me that link I have no excuse, darn you ! ! ! lol

Got the link bookmarked. Don't wanna mess with something that involved until after I'm done getting that free ship in case I TRIBBLE something up.

dragonsbite

Hehe, good idea.

I did a fresh Win 10 install using a 8gb thumb drive. Microsoft has ISO files with updated win 10 install discs. Just download and use that. But read the instructions first just in case. Mine went smoothly vs the upgrade from 7 to 10 which went horribly.

That was the desktop. The laptop was even worse in at least one way. My laptop function keys refused to work and Toshiba won't update the software for it to make it work for win 10. So had to roll back to win 7. At least I didn't loose any data on the lappy.

Win 10 ISO download and instructions

That will have the updated ISO file. And by updated I do mean it has all the latest patches so it's the latest non beta version. Oh I still have my ISO on my thumb drive. It's using 4.14gb of 7.59gb and it's bootable of course.