I receive the same error when attempting to launch from Bnet. Running a Nvidia 970 GTX on Windows 10. I do not have an integrated GPU on my motherboard, so there’s nothing to disable there. I was able to get the .exe to run from the game directory, but then it says I need to connect to online in order to get past the start screen.
9/27 22:40:36.712 [Prism/4] [<>:0]: D3D12CreateDevice Failed
9/27 22:40:36.712 [Prism/4] [<>:0]: Unsupported API Backend
9/27 22:40:36.712 [D2Prism/5] [<>:0]: Fatal: failed to create device.
9/27 22:40:36.717 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 4098 driver version 656764l device name AMD Radeon HD 5700 Series
9/27 22:40:36.717 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 5140 driver version 1164117400l device name Microsoft Basic Render Driver
9/27 22:40:38.240 [D2Win/5] [<>:0]: Fatal failure during initialization.
Doesnt work. Whatever i do i get the same graphic error. And i do meet all the requirements
Problem signature:
P1: Corsair.Service.DisplayAdapter
Corsair stats display can cause crashes.
Problem signature:
P1: vgtray.exe
Vanguard can cause crashes.
Check those out 
Don’t have either of those programs, so unfortunately this fix is a no go from me.
Fun fact today though, was messing around more trying to get the game to launch and I went into my device manager, installed a legacy Microsoft remote driver, disabled my actual GPU, and low and behold, the game launched. Granted, it was a slideshow because… I more or less disabled my graphics card to get past the initial error.
So, this, along with the conversation I had with a friend who is much more knowledgeable regarding these things than I am, leads me to believe that it’s one of two things:
- The Blizzard launcher is legitimately ‘gatekeeping’ the game, communicating with the driver to get some sort of information as to what you have, and if it doesn’t fall within their acceptable cards, refuses to even load the game. Doesn’t explain why people with more up-to-date graphics cards are having the same issue though, but it could just be the launcher misidentifying their driver info/graphics cards.
- Somehow I have some sort of ‘ghost’ driver that is confusing the Blizzard launcher and preventing it from opening the game properly but refuses to show up when I’m specifically looking for it to disable it. Prior to installing the aforementioned, my graphics card driver was the only one showing on the device manager. This ‘ghost’ driver could also explain why the better rig people get the same error. Though, part of me is wondering if it could be even simpler and a matter of using multiple monitors… I’ll have to test that out tomorrow.
Either way… the common factor here is the Blizzard launcher. Sure, there may be some hoops and hurdles I can jump through to bypass it and actually get the game running properly, and if I do it may not even run well which should be my prerogative to decide, not Blizzards. I have a ticket submitted regarding this, but because of the current state of Blizzard… my hopes aren’t exactly high, and I’m sure forums are going to be significantly more useful than their tech support.
You can set the launcher to close when you open a game.
Poor phrasing on my part. Launching D2R, it seems the first thing it does is that driver check that’s preventing the game from actually launching and giving the “Failed to blah blah” error. Whether I launch straight from the .exe or the Blizzard launcher doesn’t matter. The issue is that check.
Have you tried using DDU to remove all copies of the driver and then doing a clean install?
Same problem for me
[Prism/4] [<>:0]: Unsupported API Backend
[D2Prism/5] [<>:0]: Fatal: failed to create device.
[D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 4098 driver version 1369907009l device name AMD Radeon ™ R9 380 Series
[D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 5140 driver version 1247871522l device name Microsoft Basic Render Driver
[D2Win/5] [<>:0]: Fatal failure during initialization.
W10
I7 920
R9 380
Waiting for news…
Received confirmation from the support ticket that when the game launches, it checks your driver, and from my understanding of what was said, if it’s after X date, then it just completely rejects even loading the game… which makes complete sense to do! /s
So, despite the fact that I can play this game… I can’t, because Blizzard decided it’d be a genius idea to put a gatekeeping check on their game. Either have to find a way to bypass/fool that absolute AIDS of a ‘check’ they’ve implemented, or go for a refund, because we all know that they aren’t going to remove that despite it obviously causing a number of issues for a number of people… as those ‘numbers’ aren’t large enough for them to care.
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I’m having the same “Failed to initialize graphics device” error every time I launch. I went so far as to disable my laptops onboard graphics card and that had no effect.
Processor: Intel(R) Core™ i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Gfx Card: NVIDIA Quadro 5010M (Display Memory = 12 GB @ 4 GB Dedicated)
Blizzard Log File:
9/29 14:13:10.433 [Prism/4] [<>:0]: D3D12CreateDevice Failed
9/29 14:13:10.433 [Prism/4] [<>:0]: Unsupported API Backend
9/29 14:13:10.433 [D2Prism/5] [<>:0]: Fatal: failed to create device.
9/29 14:13:10.435 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 4318 driver version 859751l device name NVIDIA Quadro 5010M
9/29 14:13:10.435 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 5140 driver version 1247871522l device name Microsoft Basic Render Driver
9/29 14:13:38.611 [D2Win/5] [<>:0]: Fatal failure during initialization.
Paid $40+ for the game. Waited hours for the download and updates to finish. And I’m greeted with a somewhat arbitrary (based on the posts above) error. Then I spend multiple hours trying to work around the error to no avail.
It’s happening because this GPU doesn’t meet the system requirements.
What are the precise GPU requirements? Is this based off of some list? Or is based off of certain specs?
When I say list… I mean is there some text file it’s comparing the model of your graphics card against? Or is the loader comparing actual queried specs vs specs?
Absolutely, here’s a link:
Here’s the comparison:
After this, let’s stop derailing the OP’s post please. Thank you!
The minimum card required is an nVidia GTX660 per the Blizzard support page. The 660 was released in 2012 and is a kepler based card. The Quadro 5010M is from 2011 and is a Fermi based card. The 5010M is about 1/2 the performance (or even less) of the GTX660.
any news??? DES please fix THIS CRAP!
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My CPU is i-5 4460, and it seems to support AVX.
Still I have this " Failed to initialize graphics device" error. GTX 970 is way above minimal requirements.
Here is errorlog:
10/1 19:12:52.916 [Prism/4] [<>:0]: Unsupported API Backend
10/1 19:12:52.916 [D2Prism/5] [<>:0]: Fatal: failed to create device.
10/1 19:12:52.919 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 32902 driver version 924716l device name Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
10/1 19:12:52.919 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 4318 driver version 924716l device name NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
10/1 19:12:52.919 [D2Prism/4] [<>:0]: Available GPU vendor ID 5140 driver version 629164776l device name Microsoft Basic Render Driver
10/1 19:12:55.125 [D2Win/5] [<>:0]: Fatal failure during initialization.
I tried to use old/new drivers, tried to turn off intel graphics device and everything listed in this thread - same story.
Does anyone know something helpful?
Try to use the DDU software to remove any old drivers. Then get a fresh download and install them again.
If you still have the same issues open a new topic in this forum to get more help from the community.
Having the same exact problem. Both me and my friend have this issue. Meet the min requirements… we have the newest driver that is allowed. I hope to god they fix this soon or someone has a workaround. Been dying to play some D2.
Thanks for the advice, but it didn’t help. I used DDU, cleaned all NVIDIA drivers twice, installed the latest version (472.12) and got the same error.
It seems to be a common problem for NVIDIA GPUs, din’t see any comment about problems with AMD, but I might be wrong.