Unable to detect directX and FFXIV close itself.

Hello, I would like to ask on how could I deal with this problem. Today I just bought a new laptop "Acer 4830GT" which has very high spec and easily play this game in meduim-little high setting. However, the game often has randomly occur with the program "unable to detect directX" very often, while I run a little bit in-game.

Spec:
Processor CPU Intel Core i7-2620M (2.70 GHz, 4 MB L3 Cache, up to 3.40 GHz)
Chipset Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset
Graphic system Graphic Chip nVidia GeForce GT 540M (2 GB GDDR3)
Main Memory Memory 4 GB DDR3
Hard Disk Drive Hard Disk 750 GB 5400 RPM


Is there anybody could help me find the solution of the problem? so far I have downloaded and installed direction web installer so I should have all kind of directx by now.

I also notice that the problem occur more often when I swap from game to internet browser or change letter language or anything that doesn't use the game window. (althought I play on window mode)

Have you update the drivers for your GPU?

This is a problem that a lot of high-end laptop users have been experiencing lately, and is likely due to the fact that you have two active video display devices. To conserve power, your laptop probably uses the onboard video unless you're playing a game, in which case the 540GT kicks into gear. I think this is called Nvidia Optimus Technology.. somewhere during the course of playing FFXIV there is a conflict between these two devices which causes your game to crash - viewing an internet browser window may trigger your onboard video to activate, but since it doesn't have enough power to run FFXIV, it crashes. The error is deceiving, as it's really not related to DirectX.

If you can do so without screwing up your GT 540M, try disabling your onboard video from your device manager or bios, and see if that resolves your problem. Since this is such a new laptop, there isn't a ton of information for me to work with.. you'll need to do some research to figure it out. You may even need a "hack" of sorts to work-around the issue.

:Edit:

See if you can "Whitelist" FFXIV to use the GT 540M all of the time. This video is for a different laptop, but most of the steps would be the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U874jC2blJQ

thank for great information.
I have tried to set that I will perform high performance Nvidia on FF14 now ( the Nvidia has the setting which program to use which), and the problem still happen time to time. (i think it happen as soon as priority go to something else, this apply to those pop up from MSN, browser shift or window update too. I m not sure if there is a way for me to temporary switch this system off completely while I m playing game or not)

I m not sure about how to configure it on the Bios as you said tho? Can you guide me around?

I don't know what your bios looks like, so I can't really help you there. Just reboot your computer, hit the correlating key to access your bios (F2? Delete?), and then do some looking around. If there is an option to turn off your onboard video, it should be somewhat obvious. Just don't go changing a bunch of things without knowing what they do.

Other people have posted that they have similar problems when toggling their active window, but you'll need to go find those threads yourself and see if they found a solution. Unfortunately nobody titles their threads properly, and the same error can be caused by 100 different things.. so it's difficult to reference old threads.

yes, I understand that fact. that is why it can be so troublesome to deal with error each time.

Well, thank a lot for your help. I will take sometime to find it out ^^

btw, I found something that might be the reason to those problem :

Please tell me which one should I change/ should not

Power management mode : Adaptive.
Multi-display/mixed-GPU accerlation : Multiple display performance mode.

Change the first one to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and see if that helps.

The second one doesn't apply to you.

As far as MSN and other programs stealing focus and causing a crash in FF, that is something that cannot be worked around except by playing in windowed mode. If you play in full screen, you will have to wait for SE to fix the issue.

if you're still being dropped out in even in windowed mode your option is pretty much limited to using Valve's Steam overlay to run FFXIV in full-screen mode. I get dropped out constantly in windowed mode due to the Direct X error. With the steam overlay/full screen I only get dropped out when I'm stupid enough to accidentally hit alt-tab.

Choose to add non-valve game,
Set FFXIV to run in full-screen mode, and at the full screen resolution.

You'll have access to websites with the Steam overlay and not much else.

It happen on window mode, I always play on window mode all the time. I heard that full screen mode would get even more problem.

Today I have set all Nivdia configulation to max, and including full energy, I also try to check F2 BIOS, and I see no any setting relate to it. Now, I m wondering if the problem is really happen because of direct-X?

Does I need to install any directX 9 compatibility program for laptop that start on directx-11 and window 7 64 bit?
My main PC used to install something that name similar to that while the window auto update, but my laptop never get that in auto update status. (But I already install diretx 9 that come with the game)

I have DX 11 installed on my desktop, so I have no idea how well the game does or doesn't work with DX9 installed. As a general rule though, keeping DX to the most recent version is (usually) the best bet.

So I have tried everything, and now sometimes it seem to work, and sometimes not.

I notice that if it work, it will work for so many hours until I finish my play. and if it doesn't work it will only allow me to stay in game between 0min-5 min then directx will stop working. the problem is that the rate of be able to play is only about 1/10. so it is annoying to log in 10x times everyday.


Does anybody can guess the reason by the information? I feel it is weird that sometimes it can, sometimes it can't and when it can't, it will always have problem within 5 min after log.

Sadly it due to your Graphic Chip nVidia GeForce GT 540M and it's a laptop this is one of the reason i wont get any laptop right now for ffxiv maybe 1-3years down the road when there better chips that can play ffxiv without issue.

I really do think it because of your video card even if it good enough to play ffxiv i think that could be the problem.

i going to look up a few things and see what i can do to help you out.

I checked on by one, and now I know that the problem is from Nvidia-GPU.

either :
1. the battery charger that come with the laptop doesn't provide enough power to it? (or not stable and cause directx stop)
2. The graphic card is too heat? (but unlikely, because even in standard setting that I can run by intel chip alone, it still has directX problem)
3. 540M not support this game yet! And may need more driver update later. But if this is the case, other laptop with 540M should have the same problem with me. (Please help me if anybody also use laptop with 540M)
4. My graphic card has some problem physically. may be it is bad product from factory and I should claim it. (I will try to claim it by this reason if I m sure that it is not 3 reasons above.)


because my laptop spec is so high that I could run FF14 in normal resolution with core-i7 alone. (Turn off nvidia to save energy mode) Now I notice no directX problem at all after I change to use CPU only. Now, if anybody would be so kind to help me think which of the choices above was the cause of problem from the Nividia card ? because I prefer use the 540M and have little higher setting in FF14.

I have the same problem with 2 ASUS laptop with optimus technology and using the Nvidia 540M

Setting the game to use the Nvidia Card only helps out a little bit but still the game crashes rather frequently. I notice that updating to the latest nvidia drivers has helped a lot, however the crashes continue.

As many of you I initially thought this issue was related to the optimus technology, however installing the game on my desktop with 8gigs of RAM and a Nvidia GTX 480 1.5gb Ram Overclocked, the problem occurs, although less frequently the game still crashes in window mode even without switching to other windows. In fullscreen all you have to do is alt+tab and is instacrash.

Another machine with lower specs running an ATI 4870 card with 512mb of memory, does not crash at all.

Which makes me believe this is only occuring with Nvidia Cards, anyone having the DirectX problem or similar with ATI cards?

I just purchased and installed a new ATI 6970 graphics card and getting the same error. I have loaded the latest drivers.
Catalyst Version is 11.3

Updated to version 11.5 and still the same problem :(

So basically can we conclude that 540M has the problem? either the card or driver.

I can play this game in low resolution without any crash at all if I run by just core-i7 intel. (Turn Nvidia off)

I noticed this problem in September... I wrote a ticket and they said it was a "known issue" and they were "working on it." If it was a problem with the driver or other hardware issues, I would think it would be like that on some other games as well.

I know SE has been busy with fixing the entire game, but it's been over 7 months since I put in a ticket for this same issue.

Try the AMD overclock tool. Those are the same issues I was having. I now overclock before each gaming session and I'm good to go.

I have exact same problem with 555M. None of the above solutions work, have tried them all. Hope they fix this soon so I can play more than 60 seconds at a time.

I am useing the Nvidia 250, some days it will run for hours with no problem, some days within 10 mins of logging in I can dc 5 times, i've updated the drivers, overclocked the graphics card, played with the low setting all the way to the high settings.
Nothing is working!!!
We have the same thing as DinoC, my gf's laptop running and ATI graphic card has no issues with this crash,

If a dev is reading this please comment on this problem,
is it a SE software conflict with the Nvidia drivers, or is it my settings? what setting should I be using?
If its a known issue as Kitties mentioned is the concerned team working on this issue? are they close to finding a solution?
please help us Dev Team!!!

If the problem you are having is that DirectX crashes while you are playing the game that was happening to me for a long time. All I had to do was change AA to x2 and it hasn't happened since.

1) Update Intel Chipset drivers
2) Update nVidia http://www.geforce.com/#/Drivers/Results/29659
3) google DirectX SDK Update

My laptop uses the 9700M GTS and I don't have a problem running XIV and it has a 2.0 Intel Core2Duo P7350

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DinoC

Another machine with lower specs running an ATI 4870 card with 512mb of memory, does not crash at all.

Which makes me believe this is only occuring with Nvidia Cards, anyone having the DirectX problem or similar with ATI cards?

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I am using ASUS ATI 4870 1G ram on my desktop. It can run with standard mode with no problem. Only occasionally when it is too hot, I need to open up some fan...

I'm also having problem with this new Nvidia 550M on this game. Previously, I'm using a crappy HP dv6 i3-2310m laptop to play ff14 with no crash (detail = 3 background =1). But now with this i5-2410m Gt-550M laptop, I occasionally can play hours with no error. I already turn everything to Nvidia card only, but still...
I'm thinking since my crappy old i3-2410m can run my i5 should run better...

FFXIV is the only game which causes BSOD for me randomly... but SE won't fix such stuff since

Quote:

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When taking into consideration the performance of the PlayStation 3 version

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fixing pc-specific issues would be pointless ;)

Hello, Im having the same problem in window mode only which is annoying since i cant surf the web at the same time to look up quest etc. i have a Dell XPS I7 and a 540m nivida card could someone tell me why this happens and how i can fix it

It seem that all people with Nvidia-Gforce 5XXM have problem with it. either 540M 550M and etc 500M series.

My laptop can turn off Nvidia card and still play with CPU alone, so I do that and now it work all okay. no longer any problem except that the graphic look suck without GPU help.

Is any of the SE technical team looking at this thread? so far with all the problem so many people report, you should realise that you have problem with 500M series Could you somehow work to fix it?

Please give some respond to our question, SE.

oi - this issue is starting to piss me off. I've been playing the game fine for months and haven't had any changes on my pc in as much time. Today I've had this error happen 3 times. What gives.

I know this is an old thread, but....

I had this problem for a long time. Could not run the game in window mode because I always received the directX error after playing for a little while. I tried everything suggested on this thread, but nothing helped or they would be temporary help.

Yesterday I read in a thread about disabling Windows 7 Aero or Desktop Composition when running this game in order to hog less resources. Decided to give that a try and decided to also give window mode a try again and voila it worked.

Find the "ffxivgame.exe" (not the ffxivboot.exe or ffxivconfig.exe) in your FFXIV directory folder
Right Click it and go to "properties".
Under the "Compatibility" tab check "Disable Desktop Composition".
Then Click apply or OK.
Config the game to run in windows mode via FFXIV Config. Then run and enjoy the game in windows mode. I know this wont fix everyones problem. But hopefully it fixes a few.

I'm using a nvidia gt 200 serie and i used to get this all the time.
-Alt tabing in full screen would cause this.
-Not setting AnitAliasing to 2x in FF settings would cause this

Now it's been a while since i got it.

thx for that monkey its working for me so far b4 i did like you say i was not even abel to get back in the game

I believe Monkey is on the right track and that this is actually a Windows 7 issue. Something with the whole Aero thing W7 has causes the game to temporarily lose the DirectX device (the GPU) and this would normally not be a problem but of course FFXIV is "special", so it loses the GPU for good. This is also why alt+tabbing in fullscreen mode will always instantly crash the game. I still run XP, so I can't personally confirm this.

Also, a couple nitpicks: The i7, while a good CPU, cannot run FFXIV on its own (CPUs are really horrible at graphics calculation and don't cut it in modern games). When the 540M (which is actually a low end card, btw) is not in use, the laptop uses it's integrated graphics chip which of course sucks because its only there for saving power.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alise

So basically can we conclude that 540M has the problem? either the card or driver.

I can play this game in low resolution without any crash at all if I run by just core-i7 intel. (Turn Nvidia off)

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I had this issue on my old laptop it turned out to be the newer drivers that caused it, uninstall your drivers and install 2-3 OLDER versions of them. My laptop has a Radeon driver but I had to install a 7 month old driver and then it worked without any problems

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frein

Also, a couple nitpicks: The i7, while a good CPU, cannot run FFXIV on its own (CPUs are really horrible at graphics calculation and don't cut it in modern games).

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Got to stop you there as this is rubish, before I got my graphics card I was playing FFXIV on my Intel i5 2500k's intergrated graphics, I had to turn some settings down such as res. to 6 but it ran fairly stable at 25-30FPS, you can easily overclock the graphics in a K series, I upped my intergrated from 1100Mhz to 1400Mhz and it ran very well, scored 1000 in the benchmark to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fear

Got to stop you there as this is rubish, before I got my graphics card I was playing FFXIV on my Intel i5 2500k's intergrated graphics, I had to turn some settings down such as res. to 6 but it ran fairly stable at 25-30FPS, you can easily overclock the graphics in a K series, I upped my intergrated from 1100Mhz to 1400Mhz and it ran very well, scored 1000 in the benchmark to.

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That's a fair point but it's not really the CPU running it, it's the integrated GPU that's baked into the latest generation of Intel CPUs. Before the i-series you had to have either a separate video card or an integrated chip on the motherboard to run graphics from this decade. It's because the CPU is specialized on running a few very complicated calculations simultaneously, while graphics require hundreds of simultaneous yet very simple calculations, which is what a GPUs is good at.

Monkey is on the right track, I think that help me too.