(9 Fixes) “D3D11-Compatible GPU Required” Launching a Game

The D3D11 means Direct3D version 11. It is an Application Programming Interface (API) for Microsoft Windows to render 3D dimensional graphics. Most games are developed to use Direct3D, and manufacturers include Direct3D in the graphics driver, so the game can communicate with the graphics card.

When this error “A D3D11 compatible GPU is required to run the engine” occurs while launching the game, that means the module Direct3D feature level 11 required to run the game is missing from your drivers, which means you need to update the graphics driver.

If your Graphics Card is too old, there is a possibility that your graphics card does not support Direct3D, which means you need to upgrade your graphics card in order to run the game or application. However, if you have a modern GPU facing this error, it is due to missing Direct3D.

1. Check if your Graphics Card support Direct3D

Before we jump into the methods, it is recommended to figure out if your GPU supports Direct3D or not. If your Graphics Card is not compatible with Direct3D, you cannot fix this error unless you upgrade your GPU to at least one which supports DirectX.

1. To do so, press the Windows + R keys together.
2. Type dxdiag in the search box and click OK to open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool.

   

3. Go to Display from the top.
4. Then, check if your graphics card supports Direct3D or not. If it is, you will see it under Drivers.

   

5. If Direct3D is not listed, try installing the DirectX. If it is still missing, it means your graphics card does not support it. You need to upgrade your GPU to play the game.

2. Install the DirectX Component

DirectX is a library that contains various APIs, one of which is Direct3D, which allows the games to communicate with the graphics card. Since you have a D3D11compatible GPU is required to run the engine error, installing the latest version of DirectX can fix this error because it will install all the APIs along with Direct3D.

To install DirectX:

1. Download the DirectX from the Microsoft website.

   

2. Once the downloading is finished, double-click on it to run the installer.
3. Follow the basic installation instructions to install the directX.

   

4. Once done, check if the problem is fixed or not. If not, move on to the other methods.

3. Update Your Windows

DirectX is developed by Microsoft, which means it can be downloaded through Windows updates. Windows update utility is not only used to update Windows but also used to download drivers, redistributable, and components like DirectX.

To update the Windows:

1. Press the Windows key and type Check for updates.

   

2. Open the Windows update settings and click Check for updates.

   

3. If there are pending updates available, download and install them.
4. Once done, restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

4. Increase Paging File Size

The page file is a hidden portion of the hard disk that allows the users to use their RAM efficiently. It shifts the infrequently accessed tasks from the RAM to the page file to let the system use the RAM more efficiently. This means if you have integrated GPU and you enable the paging file feature, you will be able to utilize the iGPU VRAM more efficiently because iGPU tales the VRAM from the physical RAM, which can help fix this error.

To increase the page file size, follow the steps:

1. Press the Windows key and type Advanced System Settings.

   

2. Open System Properties and go to Advanced from the top.
3. Click Settings under Performance.

   

4. Go to Advanced and click Change.

   

5. Untick the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
6. Choose a Custom Size and set the initial size to 1.5 times your physical RAM and the maximum size to 4 times your physical RAM. For instance, if you have 8GB of RAM, your initial size should be 8GB * 1.5 = 12000, and your maximum size should be 8GB * 4 = 32000.

   

7. Click OK to save the changes, and again click OK and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
8. Once done, launch the game and check if the error is fixed.

5. Add D3D11 into Launch Options

If you are receiving this error while playing a game on a platform that supports Launch Options, such as Steam or Epic Games, adding D3D11 into launch options can fix this error. Launch Options is a feature that is used to run the game with the commands described by the users.

For instance, if you add D3D11, it will use Direct3D version 11 to render the graphics for the game. Therefore, try adding D3D11 to the launch options by following the instructions.

Steam

1. To add the command in Launch Options:
2. Open Steam and go to Library.
3. Right-click the game showing you this error message, and select Properties.

   

4. Type the D3D11 in the launch options.

   

5. Once done, try launching the game to see if the problem is fixed.

Epic Games

1. Open Epic Games Launcher and go to Settings by clicking the profile on the top.

   

2. Scroll down to the bottom and expand the game.
3. Tick Additional Command Line Arguments.
4. Enter D3D11 in the launch options and launch the game to see if the error is fixed or not.

   

6. Enable the Game to run with a Dedicated GPU

If you have a system with a dedicated Graphics Card with integrated GPU as well, it is possible the game is running on the iGPU to save power, slower than the dedicated GPU. As a result, the game cannot communicate with D3D11, which results in a lack of communication between the game and the graphics card, resulting in this error message. Hence, try running the game with Graphics Preference settings, which will allow you to run the application with the dedicated graphics card.

1. To do so, press the Windows key and type Graphics Settings.

   

2. Open the settings and click Browse.
   

   

3. Navigate to the location where the game is installed.
4. Select the .exe file and click Add.

   

5. Once done, select the app and click Options.
6. Select High Performance and click Save.

   

7. Once done, launch the game to see if the error persists.

7. Update or Reinstall Graphics Drivers

The final step is to update or reinstall the GPU driver. Since none of the methods has worked, and the D3D11 module is still missing, you can either update or reinstall the graphics drivers. Microsoft developed Direct3D, so the game’s developers don’t need to write a different version of their game for every new graphics card that comes out.

Graphics Card manufacturers include the Direct3D module in their drivers because games are developed using Direct3D. As a result, the game communicates with Direct3D drivers to control the graphic card. Hence, we will try updating the graphics driver, and if that does not work, then we will move on to clean installing the graphics drivers using the driver uninstaller utility.

7.1 Update Graphics drivers

There are two ways to update graphics drivers, either with the device manager or with GPU vendor applications like GeForce Experience or AMD Radeon software. We recommend you to update the drivers using the graphics vendor application because the device manager sometimes shows The best drivers for your device are already installed.

To update the drivers from your vendor:

1. Open the application, and go to the Drivers section.
2. Click Check for updates to detect the pending driver updates. If you see a pending update, click the Download button.

   

3. Then, click Express Installation and wait for the drivers to be successfully installed.

   

4. Once done, launch the game to see if the error persists.

7.2 Reinstall Graphics Drivers

Typically, users uninstall the drivers from the device manager. However, we recommend uninstalling drivers using a tool like DDU, which stands for Display Driver Uninstaller, used to uninstall drivers completely from the system along with its registry files.

1. To do so, download the Display Driver Uninstaller from the link.
2. Once it is finished, right-click on it and select Extract to ”

   

3. Wait for the extraction process to be finished, go to the folder, and run the DDU application.
4. Click Extract and navigate to the extracted folder.

   

5. Run the Display Driver Uninstaller application.
6. Select the device type and then the device from the right.
7. Then, click Clean and restart.

   

8. Once your computer restarts, you need to download the graphics drivers.
9. Go to the official graphics card manufacturer’s site, like Nvidia or AMD.
10. Go to the support section or drivers section.
11. Select your GPU and operating system.
12. Search for the drivers and download the latest one.

    

13. Once the downloading is finished, double-click on it and follow the basic installation instructions to install the graphics drivers.
14. Once done, try launching the application to see if the error is finished.