Turns out, I learned that Activision-Blizzard managed to convince Microsoft to create a Windows 7 version of DirectX 12 for their World of Warcraft player base. When I learned of this it made me wonder if there was a way to get my system to make it work for other games. After all, I have been playing WoW: TBC Classic which is build upon the same core engine as the current retail game.
Answer is yes. Yes, you can get DirectX12 to work with other games. I can’t say this will work for every DX12 game and Windows 7, but I can now play Diablo II Remastered and that is all that I really cared about.
What did I do?
Well, looking into it, I decided to run dxdiag and see what versions of DirectX my graphics card would run. In it, I didn’t see the version listings that other screenshots had shown, but I also didn’t see anything that would imply I couldn’t run it.
I then checked on my drivers and found that while they were up to date, the control software from AMD was not. So I downloaded that and updated the AMD control panel.
At this point, Diablo II was still not working, I kept getting the dx12 failed to initialize error.
So I went into WoW and looked for the DirectX12 option. I turned it on and hit apply and waited to see what would happen. My screen flashed, blacked out, and then after about 5 seconds cleared and came back. I was able to confirm keep settings. I then changed between DirectX 11 and 12 several times and was greeted with smooth transitions between the two afterwards. Seemed DirectX12 was now working, at least with WoW.
I tried to run Diablo II again at this point. To my delight, it worked! The game loaded. I was greeted with Blizzard’s logo and then the old Blizzard North logo. The cinematics played and I was able to create a character and start playing!
I can now run Diablo II Remastered on Windows 7 with DirectX 12 enabled.
I don’t know if this will help anyone else, but if it does…happy demon slaying to you!