game does not launch

[1mmika]

I'm running an nvidia gtx 780 and was also having this problem, tried pretty much all the same troubleshooting as everyone else. Finally got it to work after finding a reddit post which said to go back to an older driver! For some reason the newest 475.06 was causing the launch issue for me. My current driver is 456.71 but the reddit OP used 471.96, along with a few other people saying that this version worked for them, hope this helps!

[Tiakira_Yakumo]

I can start the launcher, log in, hit 'play', then launcher window closes and a new full screen black window opens like it used to, and then nothing. I end up with a black screen and a working mouse pointer.

Have to crlt-tab out of full screen black window switch to another desktop and force close what should be the game in a full screen window.

First let me say my system is definitely a "fringe" configuration that is unsupported by SE but FFXIV has worked flawlessly for the last 2 years, and before that it was running on Steam using Proton as a 'non-steam game'for another 2 years. Version 6.55 was working perfectly using WINE and Lutris on June 25th before the update.

My current system, software (all 64bit);
GNU/Linux, Devuan 5 (Debian 12 fork)
Trinity Desktop Environment 14.0.1.0
Glorious Eggrolls custom WINE package version 8.26 with the Lutris game launcher.

current hardware;
Intel Core i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
Argus motherboard with 16GB RAM
nvidia GTX 1050, 3GB vRAM, using Linux driver ver. 525.147.05

Also been trying to get FFXIV working on my old system that is mostly the same except with a Intel i5 @ 2.8GHz, 12GB RAM, same vid card, and dual boots between Windows 7 and Devuan 4. Tried getting the game working in Win 7 but was getting some errors about the Visual C++ runtimes. I know SE doesn't support Win 7 anymore but the different OSs handle and report errors differently so its useful for diagnostics and testing.

What I've done so far;
confirmed the new bootFFXIV.cfg and FFXIV.cnf have the same edits as the older working ones, browser 0, browsertype 1.

The update changed it back to the games original 1280x720 windowed default. The same settings you get when you do a clean install. I manually edited the new FFXIV.cfg the update created for borderless window at 1920x1080, 1280x1024, 1280x800, 1280x720.

Installed the latest version of Microsoft's Visual C++ 2015 redistributable, 14.0.24123.0, into both the WINE prefixs and Windows 7.

All told today I reinstalled the games FOUR times, one "Restore game data" from the FFXIV Launcher's config menu, 3 completely clean (2 on Linux, one on Win 7).

So far nothing has worked. I've spent about 14 hours today trying to get the game working, a lot of that was just waiting for the game to (re)install and searching the forums for a solution.

Started a complete reinstall of Devuan 5 and installed the latest nvidia production release driver, 550.90.07 (the 525 is from the default Devuan repositories). Will finish that tomorrow.

Worst case If that fails I'm going to try installing Win 10 on my older system. if I can get to play FFXIV that way then I have to consider is FFXIV is important enough to me to give MS money for a Win 10 lisence. I ditched Windows when 8 came out, hated the UI, I don't like to be spyed on by my OS, and working with it was a major PITA. So many settings that used to be user changeable now weren't. I've also been around long enough to know about most of the less than legal things MS did in the past to get where they are.


The only thing I can solidly say is the issue seems to be centered around the file 'ffxiv_dx11.exe'. Since Linux/WINE handles running programs a little differently than Windows I was able to see how far along in the chain of executing programs FFXIV gets before it dies. the black screen that I was ending up at was ffxiv_dx11.exe not releasing it's display window when the program dies.

Sorry for the long sort of rant/vent. This has been incredibly frustrating, I've been playing for seven years and loved almost every minute of it. Hopefully the info above will be of some use to someone. I'm heading for bed, it has been a very long day trying to deal with this.

UPDATED: Fixed my install. Game now working.
So after getting some sleep and getting my morning caffeine requirement I resumed my search with a general focus on the ffxiv_dx11.exe program. After some digging I broadened my search to black screens and dx11 in general without looking for FFXIV specific issues.

Found a comment about turning the Vulcan shaders on, I kind of skimmed over it since the DVDK option in WINE was already enabled but it made me ask what would happen if I turned Vulcan support OFF. Which I did, and the game started normally. The delay between the game window going full screen and black and the "Square Enix" intro pl;aying was a little longer than usual the screen then went to the Dawntrail game menu and I was able to connect and load my main character. Spent the rest of the day getting caught up with my friends who were already playing. After I get this edit finished I'm going to see about starting a thread with this info to make this info easier to find.

So, tl:dr, try turning Vulcan support OFF. Worked for me, might work for you. YMMV. Good luck.

[Gurtvire]

Hi all, I'm sorry to hear others have been having this same issue too. Same here as well unfortunately.

I also noticed this same exact issue too with the Dawntrail Benchmark (ie able to login fine, click play on the launcher, black box opens then immediately closes seconds later, no error messages displayed at all). I've not come across that issue with any of the prior FFXIV benchmarks that I've tried in the past.

Now with the actual Dawntrail Expansion, I've noticed the same issue persists (I'm on the PC version, not Steam). I've tried some of the things people earlier have mentioned but without success.

Not sure what to do at this point except to wait and see if the FFXIV Dev team acknowledges this issue (I realize there's plenty going on right now given Early Access has begun and the official full launch is coming up July 2nd).

Just wanted to add my voice to the group so hopefully someone there realizes it's not just an individual issue, and that several others are noticing the same problem too.

(been playing since 2.0 so like others yeah, it has been years with the game. Still enjoy it and would like to keep going, but yeah it has been frustrating understandably)

[ViccAznar]

I'm still stuck here, but with a new error message.
Unfortunately, I can't go further than this and don't know what to do to fix it.

I hope this error message lights some part of the path to the solution:

"Unable to find the entry point for the SetProcessDpiAwarenessContext procedure in the dynamic link library D:\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY XIV Online\game\ffxiv_dx11.exe."

Thank you for the attention.

[Tout-An]

I can start the launcher, log in, hit 'play', then launcher window closes and a new full screen black window opens like it used to, and then nothing. I end up with a black screen and a working mouse pointer.

Have to crlt-tab out of full screen black window switch to another desktop and force close what should be the game in a full screen window.

First let me say my system is definitely a "fringe" configuration that is unsupported by SE but FFXIV has worked flawlessly for the last 2 years, and before that it was running on Steam using Proton as a 'non-steam game'for another 2 years. Version 6.55 was working perfectly using WINE and Lutris on June 25th before the update.
.

So you finally managed to run FF14 on windows 7?

[Tiakira_Yakumo]

So you finally managed to run FF14 on windows 7?

Nope, Linux with WINE and Lutris as described in my original post in this thread (#14).

I might still try to get Dawntrail running on my old Win 7 system just for fun and to have a "worst case" backup, though given that most of these reports of startup issues are on newer Windows OS installs to begin with it probably isn't worth the effort to get FFIXV running on Win 7.

[TouiiMonochrome]

for me it will be either making it work with wine or proton or having to fork over money for new hardware. the rig is fast enough, but only TPM1.2

[AlphaKurokami]

I'm running an nvidia gtx 780 and was also having this problem, tried pretty much all the same troubleshooting as everyone else. Finally got it to work after finding a reddit post which said to go back to an older driver! For some reason the newest 475.06 was causing the launch issue for me. My current driver is 456.71 but the reddit OP used 471.96, along with a few other people saying that this version worked for them, hope this helps!

im use same video card, 471.96 help me, thanks.
finnaly i can play T_T

[ArthurBarbaro]

I'm running an nvidia gtx 780 and was also having this problem, tried pretty much all the same troubleshooting as everyone else. Finally got it to work after finding a reddit post which said to go back to an older driver! For some reason the newest 475.06 was causing the launch issue for me. My current driver is 456.71 but the reddit OP used 471.96, along with a few other people saying that this version worked for them, hope this helps!

Thank you so much!!! This worked for me too. Haven't tried newer versions yet, maybe I will later on.
For anyone interested, I believe the aforementioned reddit post was this one, by Hagio.

Many thanks also to Tiakira_Yakumo, who managed to track the error up to ffxiv_dx11.exe. Here's hoping this will help correcting the bug, so we can properly update the drivers again (they're security fixes after all…).