DirectX Sample using DXUT Failed to create Direct3D device (Debug only)

LukeB picture LukeB · Mar 13, 2013 · Viewed 8.8k times · Source

Quite a strange problem I have here, I am trying to run the DXUT DirectX 10/11 tutorials from DirectX sample browser. They build fine, but cannot be run in Debug mode, as this triggers the error warning "Failed to create the Direct3D device". This is strange as I can run them in release mode. The strangest thing however is that they use to run in Debug mode, and I swear I changed nothing in the day it ran, and the next day that it didn't. A friend also has the same exact problem, which happened around the same time.

Has anyone ran into this problem and know of a solution, or perhaps know why its happening beyond the obvious, I have a DirectX 11 capable card if you didn't pick that up.

Thanks.

Answer

SPIKETHECAT picture SPIKETHECAT · Mar 14, 2013

I literally just spent all day trying to fix this exact same problem. Here is the solution which should hopefully fix yours too...

I managed to find this article explaining that a recent update, (26th February 2013 to be exact), caused the older version to mess up:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2013/02/26/directx-11-1-and-windows-7-update.aspx

That explains why it was working fine a few weeks ago, and now it just suddenly stopped working I guess!

Following their advice, I downloaded a trial version of Visual Studio 2012, and after an hour and a half of installation time, and a system restart, you should have all the new DirectX SDK files that you need.

NOTE: You don't even have to use Visual Studio 2012. The new files should fix your issues for Visual Studio 2010 and older versions I presume!

(Before doing this I also installed all the latest drivers, but I don't think that did anything to help, but it's worth upgrading drivers whenever you can, as that has fixed a similar issue I had before).

Hope this helps!!! :)