Hello, so I have struggled with this issue on and off for quite a while now, it has frustrated me for such a long time and hindered me from playing the game.
I install Classic WoW, launch it and I get “World of Warcraft was unable to start up 3D acceleration”
These are the things I’ve been trying to fix this issue after reading hundreds of posts, all of which don’t work/partially work:
I launch the game in compatibility mode for Win8/Win7, this fixes the 3D acceleration error, it starts up the game, however I only can see the WoW cursor & hear the login menu sound.
I disable Fullscreen Optimization & Run the game as Administrator, this does nothing.
I have set the dedicated GPU to be the default GPU in Nvidia control panel, this does nothing, however if I set it to the integrated GPU, the game starts up fine, however it gives me awful FPS, I go to the Advanced* graphics settings and try to adjust the default GPU to be my dedicated GPU however when I exit the game and launch it, this setting remains unchanged (Auto).
I’ve deleted my GPU drivers using DDU and installed the newest version, this does nothing.
I’ve made sure I don’t have any overlays in the background running.
I’ve tried setting the game to launch with DX11, DX11Legacy, this does nothing.
My Laptop is plugged in, and all power options are set to High Performance.
I can get the game to work if I go to Display Settings - lower the resolution of the monitor - launch the game(still only see black screen, can hear sound but only see cursor and able to move it) - then go back to Display Settings and choose Extend these Displays. This makes me able to alt-tab back to WoW and play it, however I notice that the FPS is very low which I assume is because the game plays on the Integrated GPU, and the laptop overheats quickly and shuts down.
Honestly I don’t know what to do anymore, I’ve reinstalled the game multiple times, reinstalled the drivers multiple times and have done almost everything I could find on the internet apart from reinstalling my OS.
This is my DxDIAG: pastebin com/rNUbiaw7
This is my gx log: pastebin com/zv7PnE6c
I am playing on an Asus K53SD using W10 Pro, i5-2450M CPU, 8GB RAM, GeForce 610M GPU, and have plugged in a monitor. I’ve tried playing without the monitor, however it makes no difference.
I’ve managed to get the game to work in the past, however I don’t know or can’t recall how I did that.
What do I do at this point? I can’t play the game.
*I want to point out, I can play other games with no problem, so I don’t believe that the dedicated GPU is broken.
Just for the record though, your computer specs are from almost a decade ago (and even back then it was a budget machine), and they did a big graphics update for Legion which was released at the end of August 2016, so it’s probably just a simple case of outdated specs.
Shadowlands however is adding support for older machines, so if you’re lucky you might actually be able to run Shadowlands on it.
Ask tech support for what they say about Classic though.
The thing is, I’ve played Classic for half a year on this same laptop with no issues before, the problem just seemed to go away on its own or I tinkered with something which I can’t recall what it was.
Yeah I know, however I would have experienced issues in other games if that was the case. I’ve seen multiple posts of people with high-end systems with this same issue. I’ve contacted support multiple times and I always get the same generic responses - to send in my DxDiag, try updating drivers and all of the things I’ve specified here. I am looking for somebody who has had this same issue and fixed it.
Just because they encountered the same error message, it doesn’t mean it was caused by the same thing. It might’ve been a bad install of the GPU for them, or data corruption, and so on. It has a lot of possible causes.
So what did support say after you’ve followed their instructions?
Can’t recall, however it obviously did not resolve my issue. I do believe this is an issue in the client, for some reason it does not register/launch using my dedicated GPU. If it was an issue with outdated components, then the game wouldn’t start at all when I use my Integrated GPU. The game does start with the integrated GPU however as I said, laptop quickly overheats and shuts down, and I had no issues with performance/FPS when the game DID play (a few months ago - this laptop hasn’t been used since then).
Try using the tech support forum instead, and follow their instructions. Easier to find the history if you do that, and forum VIPs tend to help there sometimes.
I posted on the technical forums as well, hope I don’t get my posts marked as spam. Here is a post of multiple people with similar or worse GPUs than mine with the same issue, blizzard said they were monitoring the issue - this post was like 6 months ago, it’s still not fixed lol…
How do you diagnose if the 3D acceleration is broken? I have no problems with my GPU running every other game, even games with higher requirements than WoW Classic, so the only conclusion I can make is this is a client-side problem, however I’m desperate for an answer here.
Right click desktop - nVidia Control Panel
Manage 3D Settings - Restore button (tho I then turned Power Management back to Adaptive)
Program Settings tab - Make sure there are no WoW executable overrides
Save all
Back to ‘Adjust Image Settings with Preview’ - Let the 3D Application Decide"
Something that worked for people in an older thread about the 3d Acceleration issue.
Not my original comment, just qouting to try and help as it seems about the only thing you may not have tried.