NVIDIA Driver / DirectX problems. ACER Aspire V3-772G

Nilsb7

I don't know if the title is right, but I think that's the root of the cause of my problems.

 

My hardware

- Aspire V3-772G-747a8G50Makk

 

My software

- I have all latest Windows and other products from Microsoft Update installed. Plus a little extra, the Windows 8.1 Preview.

- I have the latest DirectX version installed. Confirmed by dxdiag to be "DirectX 11" and by running the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer.

- I have the latest NVIDIA drivers installed. Confirmed by the System Information window to be 326.01, and confirmed by the NVIDIA driver update option from the notification tray icon to be the latest driver version available.

 

My configuration/settings

I've tried to keep all settings on default.

 

My problems

- The Acer Live Update program does not seem to work at all.

It keeps showing the "Reboot needed" notice after reboots.

 

- The NVIDIA Control Panel takes very long to finish loading.

It starts within 3 seconds, but shows an empty window and marked as "Not Responding" for at least 30 seconds. The load time does not decrease when closing and trying to reopen it soon after, it always takes that long.

 

- When starting any game that requires it, DirectX does not seem able to initialize.

Trackmania shows this error:

 

DirectX 9.0 initialization failed !

'line 2257, CreateDevice: D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE'

Please check if this version of DirectX is properly installed on your computer.

 

The game itself seems to start, I can hear some UI sounds right after the game's launch but the little windowed sceen (not bigger than 400x500 I think) is completely white and trying to click any invisible buttons to hope for more UI sounds does not seem to work.

 

Dota 2 shows this error:

 

Failed to create D3D device! Please see the following for more info. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?p_faqid=772

 

When trying to start Dota 2, the desktop resolutions shrinks a lot, shows the error, and goes back to the normal resolution after the OK button on the error message has been pressed, so no UI sounds, nothing.

 

 

To add to the confusion: Flat Out 2 works. No errors, a little laggy but I didn't change any settings. Not sure if DirectX is required for this game as well but according to a quick google search it does seem to be the case.

 

 

I have no idea how to solve this and would appreciate some help. I could try to install some other games but I think it's pretty clear the problem lies with DirectX and/or the NVIDIA drivers.

 

EDIT: I have fixed the DirectX problem by installing this BETA version of the NVIDIA drivers. Then I started Trackmania, and Windows showed a popup asking me to install DirectPlay. This apparantly fixed my problem and the game then started without errors.

I know the NVIDIA site recommends not installing laptop version of drivers from their website but this seems to have solved it.

 

The installation of the drivers didn't go as planned, the screen went black with only the cursor briefly showing up and dissapearing soon after, I waited 15 minutes and then had to force a shutdown.

I now have no NVIDIA control pannel running on startup and I can't find it anywhere either, but it wasn't of much use to me anyways so I'll just keep it this way.

 

I think I also found out why Flat Out 2 does work without problems, it uses the intel chip, it doesn't use the graphics card, as the graphics card is not selectable in the Render Device dropdown menu that pops up when starting the game.

 

But I have some new bad news as well.

When playing Trackmania, I can not press two buttons at once. Well I can, but the game doesn't seem to acknowledge thbutis. For instance, I push UP arrow key for the throttle, the car accelerates, and then I press either the LEFT or the RIGHT arrow key to steer, and the car will steer, stop accelerating.

This doesn't seem to be the games fault because when using a different keyboard through Synergy, I can accelerate and steer at the same time. I tested this in Trials 2: Second Edition with the same results. I have not tried to edit the controls to see if it were only the arrow keys with this problem but this problem is so basic that I don't really think that's really a valid solution.

 

So. My updated problems list

- No button input >1?

- No NVIDIA Control Panel

- Acer Live Updater only showing "Reboot needed"

Nilsb7

UPDATE:

Trying to start the NVIDIA beta deinstalled the video driver and left me with a black screen. No way out but forcing a shotdown by keeping the power button pressed.

After starting the laptop again, no NVIDIA drivers where installed anymore. So I started the installation of the NVIDIA beta driver again and it worked!

Now I have the latest driver installed AND I don't get any more directX errors.

 

Without drivers installed the DirectX error does not show up but the performance is very low, probably because it simply uses the onboard Intel for computing instead of the NVIDIA card.

I tried to install the driver version that's provided by Windows Update again and this breaks DirectX.

 

But I still have these problems

- No button input >1?

I tried rebinding the UP button to my W button and this worked. I could then press throtle and steer at the same time. This isn't acceptable though... and just a temporary workaround.

- Acer Live Updater only showing "Reboot needed"