One of 2020’s saving graces was its hallmark battle royale shooter, Call of Duty: Warzone. In a move that astonished critics and series fans alike, the typically predictable cash-grab franchise did something bold and different. It not only launched another battle royale, after the lackluster Black Ops IV but a pretty good one at that. Warzone also became of the last new entries in the genre that is oversaturated with PUBG copiers. But if you ask us, and the millions of players worldwide, Warzone does it the best.
What sets this game above the likes of PUBG, Apex Legends, Fortnite and the others is its mass appeal. It is very difficult to dislike Warzone since it mostly succeeds in pleasing everyone. Veteran Call of Duty players can pick up the familiar gunplay and mechanics right away, such as the classic scorestreak rewards.
Players coming from other battle royales may come to prefer Warzone’s less futuristic, more intuitive combat, and appreciate the Gulag-respawn system. And, if you have a next-gen console or powerful PC, you can enjoy high-detail textures, raytracing, and, for the latter, DLSS!
Speaking of PC gaming, need we mention that Warzone runs fairly well on all hardware tiers? The addition of DLSS will certainly make your aging RTX 2060 framerates much more at par with the new RTX 30- series. That is unless you happen to come face to face with one of its several errors. These can range from game-ruining cheating exploits like the infinite stim, making the competitive shooter downright unfair. Or, as in recent months, the notorious Warzone DirectX error.
Players experiencing the Warzone DirectX error report the game crashing or unable to start up
This error is a something of a doozy for many computer experts. This is because the issue stems not from Activision’s servers or even your hardware. Instead, the most common message players see come up indicates a missing file. Check it out:
The issue is also reportedly highly persistent, with players claiming this failure to launch reoccurs at times. That means you could keep clicking on your Warzone icon for hours on end with no luck. Worse still, players claim that they have not had success logging in since several seasons now.
However, we say you can rest assured that the problem won’t last forever. Currently, no major update or patch has completely eliminated this Warzone DirectX error. However, the developers at Activision surely will release a major fix for this issue eventually. Until then, we give you some handy tips on how to do away with this nasty Warzone PC error. See you back on the battlefield, soldier!
1) Restart your PC and then try to launch Warzone again
Sometimes, a small cog in the great big machine is the culprit behind a complete systematic failure. When your PC runs, it isn’t just one supreme monolith. On the contrary, multiple simultaneously running processes start running together, each with its own vital task. If one of these malfunctions or launches incorrectly, it can lead to a bug or corrupted data. Over time these errors can accrue, until your entire system is riddled with bugs. This can compromise your software, and make launching and running game processes difficult.
For this reason, it is imperative to restart your system. Doing so not only kills off misbehaving processes but also helps launch them back up properly. This makes your new bootup smoother and more bug-free. Retry launching Battle.net and Warzone, they may work now without a hitch.
2) Tweak the Battle.net launcher settings in the advanced settings
A major cause for poorly running games is an error in the launcher itself. Because Warzone runs off Blizzard’s Battle.net service, you’ll need to tweak the script in the launcher itself. This will allow you to input the correct script in the prompt, allowing an erroneous script to become overridden. While this is easy enough to do, we warn you not to modify anything you aren’t familiar with. This could lead to unexpected changes to the way your game is run, that you cannot easily reverse.
To change the Warzone Battle.net script, open the Options tab in the launcher. Then, head to “Additional command-line argument”, which opens the prompt. In this section, you can input “-D3D11” (without the quotation marks). Then, save the change and restart the program.
3) Make sure your game drivers are up-to-date
Depending on your GPU make (Nvidia or AMD), your source for game ready drivers will vary. For those unaware, drivers essentially comprise software bundles that carry improvements, optimizations and bug fixes. When any major AAA title launches, new drivers usually follow to make sure your GPU runs it most optimally. Even for existing titles like Warzone, occasional driver updates still release onto AMD’s site and the Nvidia GeForce Experience app. A wise gamer is one who responsibly checks their respective driver source for new updates. After all, issues like the Warzone DirectX error can easily receive fixes over such updates.
4) Download the latest DirectX bundle from Microsoft and reinstall
If you have a new PC, or if you had recently factory-reset your system, you might lack certain essential components for gaming. Even if these two situations don’t apply to you, it is still possible your DirectX version is obsolete. As the error message states, the main issue stems from a certain program within DirectX failing to run properly.
DirectX is basically a collection of various official Microsoft multimedia programs in one bundle. These programs allow your PC to run games, as well as other complex rendering tasks. Along with Microsoft C++, DirectX is a program that needs regular updates to run the latest games.
Normally, you can just forget about it after the initial installation as many game installations automatically update it too. However, if your version is obsolete, corrupted, or missing, you’ll need a fresh download of the latest version. You can pick it up here, from Microsoft’s official source. Then, reinstall your game, which should apply the latest DirectX to the registry. This should solve your Warzone DirectX error.
For more on gaming, PC tips and all things Call of Duty, stay tuned!