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.
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:
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:
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:
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
Epic Games
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.
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:
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.
