Possible causes of (and solutions to) the infamous DirectX crash [Unexpected error &

Hello everyone,
Over the past two weeks, I have been dealing with crash after crash. Eventually I found what caused the issue for me and I am making this post for anyone who runs into the same (or similar) problem. I hope this post will make it a bit easier to deal with this issue. I am including a lot of details in the hopes of making this post easier to find. There is a TL;DR at the bottom with what fixed it for me.

For context, this is my (desktop) setup:

Windows 10 x64

32GB DDR4 3600MHz

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x (no overclock)

MSI Ventus RTX 3070 (factory overclock)

Resolution: 2560x1440 @ 165Hz

I found that many others were dealing with these issues. For me, the crashes came with either of these error messages:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...al_DirectX.PNG
A fatal DirectX error has occured.(11000002)

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...cted_error.PNG
An unexpected error has occured. Exiting FINAL FANTASY XIV. 2022-07-07_20:28

While troubleshooting this issue, i had tried all of the following, to no avail:

Rebooted PC many times

All windows updates have been done

Changed game to windowed mode and back to fullscreen

Tried playing on borderless fullscreen

Restored game data through launcher

Complete re-installation of FFXIV (launcher and game files redownloaded)

installed the game on a different drive

Clean install of newest GPU drivers

Used the Display Driver Uninstaller tool to completely remove the GPU drivers and installed the newest ones.

Made a new windows admin account and tried playing from there

Ran sfc and DISM on windows (to fix issues with windows itself)

I was at a loss. No other games had any issues. While trying some other fixes, the game crashed again, but this time there was also a Blue Screen of Death with error code MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. This indicated something was up with my RAM. So, I tested my RAM.
If you have this issue and haven't done this, I HIGHLY recommend it. Video of these steps (1:36)
Press the Windows Key, type "Windows Memory Diagnostic" and click it once it appears.

Choose "Restart now and check for problems"

This restarts your PC and it will check your RAM. This process can take some time. For me it way about 15 to 20 minutes.

During the process, it may say "Hardware problems were detected". If this is the case for you, chances are you found the culprit. If didn't see this appear or you missed it, you can check the results (next step).

After the process completes, it will boot back to Windows. You can check this video to see how to find the results.

If the result says there were issues found, you found a possible cause of the DirectX crashes. If no issues were found, you can try Memtest86. This is a more comprehensive test of your RAM and chances are this will reveal problems if there are any. This video does a great job of explaining how you can use Memtest86. You will need a (small) USB drive.

To my surprise, the Windows Memory Diagnostic actually found issues. My RAM is less than a year old, so this was very strange to me. I used Memtest86 to confirm there was an issues and sure enough, the errors flooded in.

At this point, you have a few options:
Laptop users: if it's still under warranty, your best bet is to make use of the warranty. You can go messing with the RAM yourself, but it would be a waste if you somehow mess up. If the warranty ran out or you feel like messing about, read on!

Desktop users: I personally decided to try a reseat (getting the RAM out of the slot and putting them back). If you feel comfortable with this, by all means try it. The first time I did this, it didn't work for me.

After the reseat (which didn't work for me), I wanted to narrow down which of the two sticks of RAM as causing problems. I removed one of the sticks and ran Memtest again. I got no errors. I then swapped the RAM sticks (so that the other one was in my PC by itself) and ran Memtest again. I got no errors...
Well that's weird. I booted into Windows to see what was going on. I then realized my GPU driver was being weird. My second monitor wasn't being detected. I think this was caused by changing my RAM from 32 GB to 16 GB, but I frankly have no clue why this should matter. I did a clean install of my GPU driver and everything worked again.

NOTE: it is possible this is what (somehow) solved my issue. So in short, if you have two or more sticks of RAM, try removing one (or two if you have two pairs) stick of RAM. Then, boot into Windows and do a clean install of your GPU driver. I have no clue why this would do anything, but maybe this helps somehow.

After that, I figured I would try Memtest again with both RAM sticks at the same time. To my surprise, I got no errors. I tried playing FFXIV and sure enough, i was able to play well over 2 hours without any crashes.
Now, if you still get Memtest (or Windows Memory Diagnostic) errors at this point, you are likely dealing with a faulty stick of RAM. Even a single error on Memtest can cause crashes. If your RAM is under warranty, use it to get some fresh sticks. If your warranty ran out, I suggest buying some new RAM. There is a good chance this will solve these crashes.

If you have any questions, shoot me a message! I'd love to help.

TL;DR (and other fixes):

My issue was my RAM. You can use Windows Memory Diagnostic (basic check; video) and Memtest86 (comprehensive check; video) to test your RAM. If either find errors (even 1 error is an issue), you likely have a faulty RAM stick. You can try re-seating the RAM sticks and try using them individually.
Some other fixes/solutions I have found during my search for answers. I will add any other solutions so this can serve as a collection of possible solutions:
Limit FPS to screen refreshrate (1 to 1)

Try using BurnInTest (free trial) to see if it comes up with any problems

Try fixing corrupt windows files (both SFC and DISM are programs made by Microsoft to repair your Windows installation):

Go to Start and type: cmd

In the search window you should see a program called "cmd"

Right-click on it and select "Run as administrator"

In the black window that opens, enter: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Press the Enter-key- Wait for the process to finish

Now enter: sfc /scannow (note the space between "sfc" and "/")

Press the Enter-key- Wait for the process to finish

Turn on Windows mode in game, and switch back to Fullscreen or Borderless fullscreen

Downclocking your (factory) overclocked GPU

Glad this worked out.

Regarding reseating RAM:

When I was less than half as old as I am now, I used to work with a PDP 11/34 minicomputer.
These things were built on a dozen or more large PCBs that slotted into a backplane using gold-plated edge connectors: giant versions of the little fingers on modern DRAM.
Periodically, the 11/34 would start acting up.
When they did, we would turn it off, take the PCBs out, clean the gray gunk off the gold-plated fingers of the edge connectors with a pencil eraser, and put the PCBs back in. This invariably restored the minicomputer to reliable operation.

Years later, PCs came with either gold- or tin-plated memory sockets, and DRAM sticks came with either gold- or tin-plated edge fingers.
If you placed a tin-plated DRAM in a gold-plated socket, or vice-versa, eventually the current through the connection would cause galvanic corrosion that would not only interfere with electrical current passing through the connection but could weld the DRAM into the socket, preventing it from being repaired.
Now I think everyone just uses gold plating on both the socket and the DRAM.

This actually helped me. It wasn't the RAM that was corrupted but some Windows files that got corrupted during one of their updates.
So running the command prompt steps helped fix it. PC is back to running smoothly.
I usually keep updates off but thought it was time to update at some point. How wrong I was.
Thank you for this!

it's not RAM, it's XIV's DirectX 12 implementation not conforming to standards.
Downgrade your AMD GPU drivers to 21.8.2