"World of Warcraft was unable to start up 3D acceleration"

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

I recently discovered that I had another version of WoW available to me, 'World of Warcraft Classic." Regardless of what access I have, I was pretty excited to see it on the drop down menu of my client. I downloaded the game and went to start it up, only to receive a 'World of Warcraft was unable to start up 3D acceleration." message when I clicked Play. I do not get this message when opening retail WoW.

I opened a ticket and was helped along by a very nice Blizzard employee who unfortunately was unable to work through the issue with me. I was directed here if I tried all of their potential solutions with no changes.

I looked for the issue online and tried everything I could. I redownloaded the game, I redownloaded the Battle Net client, I redownloaded my drivers and made sure they were correct and up-to-date, as well as a few different things the Blizzard employee had me try. Nothing has worked, and therefore nothing has changed.

If anybody has anything to try and fix this it would be greatly appreciated that you share. Thanks in advance for your time, even if it is just to read this.

I am running Windows 8.1 and am playing on a GP60 2PE Leopard MSI Laptop.

2

Mine only does this when i have any type of anti aliasing turned on. Try resetting game options from the battle.net desktop app

3

I have done this as well with no change

4

Did you try disabling Fullscreen optimizations ?

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5

Its a full screen or wide screen issue, I had the same problem when I bought bfa it would say you cant play bfa, but I have all the specs required.

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I am running Windows 8.1 and do not have access to that option. I have done everything I can do disable fullscreen optimizations.

I cant put links apparently so here is the ending to the imgur link of my compatibility tab. /a/flr6GCY

7

Try and run the game in compatibility mode or something or download windows 10? you can always try and run the game in windows 7 or something.

8

I am not interested in downloading Windows 10, especially when that isn’t the issue as I am sure there are other people playing right now on Windows 8.1. I have tried in compatibility mode with no changes.

9

I had the exact same issues and the problem “fixed itself” eventually, but at a certain time when the game was unplayable I was able to skrew around with the compatibility and get it to “work” for a bit.

10

I think I remember my nerd friend explaining to me that windows 8.1 is pretty much the worst thing imaginable for games, windows 7 or 10 being better, ironically 7 is the older.

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11

I had same issue with stress test. Beta works fine however. Only difference I can tell is I had 1 monitor when I was setting up beta, and it worked fine. I plugged in second monitor, then installed stress test, and cannot change many of the graphics settings.

When I get home tonight, I’m going to unplug second monitor, try and change graphics to settings I want. If that works, I’ll plug second monitor back in and see if it keeps changes.

12

It sounds like a DirectX issue - you can change this in the client, and I would recommend you use DX11 Legacy, but since you cannot get in:

DirectX version can also be changed out of game through the command line arguments in the Battle-net desktop app.

  1. With the Battle-net desktop app opened and WoW selected click on Options
  2. Select Game Settings
  3. Find WoW and check the box for Additional command line arguments
  4. In the new box enter the command for the desired DirectX version:
  • -d3d11legacy
  • -d3d11
  • -d3d12
  1. Click Done to save.
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13

I am having the exact same issue. I’m running Windows 10. I’ve tried everything suggested on the forum and elsewhere. I’m really at a loss here. Was hoping to get into the client in time to claim a server and names when those become available.

14

Hey. Thanks for the suggestions. I had a Blizzard employee suggest putting those lines into the client as well, and unfortunately I did not see any changes. I will try them again later when I am home from work.

15

Three days in and I have yet to find a solution. It really kills me that the support team won’t provide assistance with Classic. Apparently, there is just no official help when it comes to getting this game to work.

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16

Relax. You sound like a whiner. They’re busy and it is an unpopular issue. I contacted support and they helped me as best as they could.

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First of all, rude. Secondly, it is not my intention to whine. Being completely unable to play a game that you have purchased and continue to pay a subscription on is kind of a big issue. I am not taking shots at anyone and understand that there are a lot of moving parts here. I am simply venting conveying my frustrations at the situation.

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18

When I see this error, it’s usually a driver issue. Have you tried updating your video card drivers. I believe Nvidia is at 430.86 and ATI is at 19.6.2. I’m running a Ti650 on an first gen i5, and I can play classic and retail just fine.

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Yes, as I mentioned in my original post I have fully re-downloaded my applicable drivers and updating my video card.

20

I just received an email from tech support, and the problem is finally fixed! They said that even though my GPU driver is up to date, I should update my Intel graphics processor (i7). I used Intel’s website (not Windows Update) to download the latest driver. After an install and a quick restart, it worked! I got 13 glorious minutes of Classic time before the server shutdown (just my luck)… Apparently, the issue is that, without the right driver, Intel can’t figure out what GPU to use, regardless of what you select in Control Panel. It defaults to the Windows GPU. I hope this info helps anyone else having this issue (even OP, despite them being a Rudey McGrumpypants)!

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