Can't detect DirectX device

I have a compatible graphic card, very low settings tho: Nvidia GForce GT240

Can travel all around the world, the game doesnt freeze, i have the game set to medium graphic details, but whenever i go to Gridania, after running around for 10-15 min my screen goes black and a pop-up message window appears:

"Final Fantasy XIV cannot detect any DirectX device installed on your computer. The client will shutdown."


We all know the problems within Gridania, but... to even kick me out of the game?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayaka

I have a compatible graphic card, very low settings tho: Nvidia GForce GT240

Can travel all around the world, the game doesnt freeze, i have the game set to medium graphic details, but whenever i go to Gridania, after running around for 10-15 min my screen goes black and a pop-up message window appears:

"Final Fantasy XIV cannot detect any DirectX device installed on your computer. The client will shutdown."


We all know the problems within Gridania, but... to even kick me out of the game?

---

What problem exactly? I never had any issues with my old 4800 series card.

Others with that error fixed it by disabling DWM. Updating directX is also worth a try.

I had that problem ... but after a while I realized that it wasn't the card the problem it was the driver that couldn.t take direct x 11, I had to manually seach the driver on the getfoce website but it solved all the problem

I've had the same problem at some point. It only occured if I log on for the first though.

After getting an SSD and reinstalling/patching the game from scratch and setting up the new windows, it's all good now. I dunno if it was some client specific error or maybe an graphic adapter driver problem.

Thanks for your responses all, I tried reinstalling DirectX, installing graphic card driver from nvidia website, i don't know what is DWM thought... but i have everything disabled through FFXIV Config (Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field...), last i can do is install & patch from scratch but... ewww, i'll try that.

And at Seirra... well, my husband has the same graphic card than me, me on Win 7 he on Win XP, when he goes to Gridania his screen freezes for a sec then it changes all colors, shows loads of small horizontal lines in red/pink all the abilities and chat text become squares but it doesn't kick him out. Many people have problems in Gridania even with compatible cards.

DWM aka Aero is the desktop window manager. It's a process running in background which can be disabled in different ways. Closing it with the taskmanager seems to work.

Oh thanks a bunch Coldfire. I don't have it activated, i don't like it lol, not useful for me. But this keeps failing all, i'm down to reinstall from scratch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayaka

Thanks for your responses all, I tried reinstalling DirectX, installing graphic card driver from nvidia website, i don't know what is DWM thought... but i have everything disabled through FFXIV Config (Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field...), last i can do is install & patch from scratch but... ewww, i'll try that.

And at Seirra... well, my husband has the same graphic card than me, me on Win 7 he on Win XP, when he goes to Gridania his screen freezes for a sec then it changes all colors, shows loads of small horizontal lines in red/pink all the abilities and chat text become squares but it doesn't kick him out. Many people have problems in Gridania even with compatible cards.

---

Funny lines and colors appearing in busy areas can be a symptom of graphics card overheating. Might want to check for dustyness on the heatsink and fan! Same thing with crashing to the desktop in busy areas.

Thanks Diraco, it's the first thought i had, sadly it's clean and when I use the fan manager it says the graphic card is perfectly fine... At first I checked if it was the hardware, but runs correctly.

So far almost everyone who I've told this solution managed to solve the problem, ihope it works for you:

My friends and I had the exact same problem (Usually around Gridania) until we tried this:

Go to FFXIV Config and set the following:

-Video Settings

Multisampling-> 2x MSAA
General Drawing Quality -> Standard
Background Drawing Quality-> High

-Graphics

Texture Quality -> Standard
Texture Filtering-> Standard

-----------------

After doing this the Directx Error never appeared again. It's not really a matter of lowering the graphic quality.
My friend's computer has that exact configuration and he even had the Multisampling off (meaning it was lower than what I listed) after he put it on 2x the problem was fixed.

Try it, the Standard quality textures are almost the exact same as the High ones, you will basically notice the Item/skill icons being less defined.

If it fixes your problem reply here so other players will know if it might work for them.

So you think the GPU might be bored from rending ugly aliased pictures and turns itself off after a while? Well I guess ffxiv will always be a mystery(in a negative way) ^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coldfire

So you think the GPU might be bored from rending ugly aliased pictures and turns itself off after a while? Well I guess ffxiv will always be a mystery(in a negative way) ^^

---

I dont know if the GPU gets bored or it's just drunk sometimes. All i know is that without Multisampling the game crashed every 5 minutes around Gridania; With it set on x2 it never crashed again.
Nothing else was changed, no drivers were touched and nothing was uninstalled, we just saw that solution posted in a forum (ffxivcore iirc) and it worked for us and many others.

Would be nice to know if it works for Ayaka too. If it does then maybe SE will have some more clues to fix it once and for all.

Well for me ffxiv also doesn't run stable if I don't OC my system(seriously). But that's probably caused by the bad BIOS and my lazyness to set the voltage manually.

I started to think is a software clash. I've been uninstalling crap, cleaning registry, and trying to sort out if there was something that tried to run ni full screen mode, forcing FFXIV to close. I've also reinstalled FFXIV from scratch and put settings like Ashgarth said.

Down to try again if i keep getting error.

Reinstalling from scratch didnt solve it.

Cleaning registry, uninstalling crap didn't work.

Thank you Ashgarth ^^, those settings worked wonders, no more error and dc.

I have the same gfx card and the sasme problem. Updated my drivers but it still crashes.

Just wanted to say i put the AA thing on or whatever it is and it hasen't crashed in 2 hours +

Was about to say that you should try that :D
Just what the hell is wrong with this game if such fixes have an effect?? Well in the first place the random crashes are pretty... random :S

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Train88

Just wanted to say i put the AA thing on or whatever it is and it hasen't crashed in 2 hours +

---

Train, I went to nvidia control panel and put the AA settings set to: "Controlled by application" then used the settings in FFXIV Config set to: "2x MSAA". It fixed my problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayaka

Train, I went to nvidia control panel and put the AA settings set to: "Controlled by application" then used the settings in FFXIV Config set to: "2x MSAA". It fixed my problem.

---

I'm glad those settings solved the problem for you two, many people dont belive that raising the graphic settings instead of lowering them can actually fix the problem.
Now that you know it... spread the word XD