DirectX Error Dragon Age Inquisition Fix: How To Finally Fix the Annoying DirectX Error in Dragon Age: Inquisition

So you just got Dragon Age: Inquisition and are super excited to explore the vast lands of Thedas. But after creating your character, you keep getting crashed back to your desktop with an error message about DirectX. Bummer!

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Tons of people have faced this frustrating DirectX error while playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. But with a few tweaks and fixes, you can get rid of it for good (hopefully)!

In this guide, I’ll walk you through all the steps I took to fix the DirectX error on my PC. These range from updating your graphics drivers to changing in-game settings and config files.

Stick with me, and you’ll be roaming the Hinterlands crash-free in no time!

Step 1: Update Those Graphics Drivers!

The first thing you wanna do is make sure your Nvidia or AMD graphics drivers are up to date. Newer drivers often include optimizations and fixes for games.

Go to Nvidia’s website or AMD’s website and download the latest stable driver for your GPU. I’d recommend doing a “Clean Install” so it wipes the old driver completely. Reboot your PC after installing the new driver.

Now launch Dragon Age: Inquisition and see if that fixed it!

If you still get crashes, try rolling back to an older driver that’s known to be stable. Sometimes the latest isn’t always the greatest.

Step 2: Turn Down The Graphics Settings

If the DirectX crashes persist, it’s time to turn down some of the more intensive graphics settings. This reduces the load on your GPU and makes things more stable.

Here are some options to lower or turn off completely:

• Ambient Occlusion
• Anti-Aliasing
• Post Processing
• Tessellation

You can also limit the game’s FPS to 60. Higher unlocked frames rates can sometimes cause issues.

Switching from Fullscreen to Fullscreen Windowed mode can help too. Windows handles windowed mode better.

The goal is to reduce the strain on your GPU just enough to stop those DirectX crashes from happening. You can tweak the settings later to find the right balance between looks and stability.

Step 3: Change Settings In Your Graphics Control Panel

The Nvidia Control Panel (or AMD Radeon Settings) lets you configure hardware settings for games. Changing a few options here might fix the crashes:

• Set Power Management Mode to “Prefer Maximum Performance”. This prevents your GPU from downclocking and causing potential issues.
• Disable Threaded Optimization. This can sometimes conflict with games.
• If you have a laptop with dual Intel/Nvidia graphics, make sure Dragon Age: Inquisition is set to use the Nvidia GPU. The integrated Intel graphics often don’t play well with games.
• Disable GPU overclocking if you have it enabled. Overclocks aren’t always stable in all games.

Step 4: Disable Those Overlays!

Many gamers reported the DirectX crashes went away after disabling some overlays:

• Disable the Origin in-game overlay in Origin’s settings.
• If you have Nvidia Experience installed, disable the Share overlay.
• Basically any overlays that run while you play could cause conflict and crashes.

Overlay apps hook deep into games to draw on top of them. This level of access can sometimes mess with the game’s stability. Turn ’em off and see if it helps!

Step 5: Repair, Reinstall and Verify

If you’re still crashing, it’s time to break out the big guns:

• Run the Repair tool in Origin on Dragon Age: Inquisition. This checks for corrupt files and re-downloads anything missing.
• Completely reinstall DirectX and Visual C++ packages. Games depend on these, so having fresh copies can help.
• Verify the game files through Origin. You’d be surprised how many crashes corrupt game files cause!

This refreshes Dragon Age to a clean, known working state. No more crusty old files messing things up.

Step 6: Tweak Config Files For Better Performance

Some clever tweaks to Dragon Age: Inquisition’s config files can boost performance and stability.

Here’s what you can try:

• Add a user.cfg file to the game’s folder and experiment with rendering settings. Lots of guides online explain what each option does.
• Limit the game to only use 4 CPU cores instead of all cores. Set “thread.processorcount” to 4.
• Change the CPU priority to High or Realtime using Task Manager. This gives Dragon Age: Inquisition’s threads more priority.

Config tweaks like these reduce strain on your hardware and optimize things under the hood. Just be careful not to tweak too many things at once!

Step 7: Check Your Hardware Components

If you’ve tried everything else with no luck, issues with your hardware could be causing the DirectX crashes:

• Disable any GPU overclocking and run your graphics card at stock speeds. Overclocks are often unstable.
• If you have SLI/Crossfire dual graphics cards, disable it and use just one card. Multi-GPU sometimes has issues.
• Increase the size of your Virtual Memory (page file). This gives games more wiggle room if they need extra resources.
• Check for overheating components. Install something like HWMonitor and keep an eye on temperatures. Overheating can cause all sorts of crashes!
• Try disabling non-essential background apps and processes to free up resources for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Hopefully it’s just a simple driver or config issue causing the crashes. But if you’ve tried everything, it’s worth doing some hardware checks and troubleshooting!

In Conclusion…

Phew, that was a lot of potential fixes! The DirectX error in Dragon Age: Inquisition can be tricky to pin down. But with some trial and error using the steps I’ve outlined, you should be able to narrow down the cause.

The key things that helped me were:

• Using older, more stable graphics drivers
• Turning down intensive graphics settings
• Tweaking config files for better optimization
• Disabling overlays that were hooking into the game

Hopefully the developers further optimize the game to reduce crashes in future patches. But for now, get your dragon slaying on by applying the fixes that work for your system!

Let me know in the comments if you found this guide helpful or have any other tips for fixing the DirectX error in DAI. Happy gaming!