DirectX 9c Issues On Server 2003 SP1

[quinriva]

I have Win Server 2003 slipstreamed with SP1 and I had these problems at first but I figured it out.

• Go to Display Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot, and set Hardware acceleration to full
  
• Run dxdiag, go to Display and where it says direct draw acceleration click enable. Direct 3D acceleration and AGP texture acceleration should also be enabled now.
  

That's it, everything should work. Although you should probably make sure that direct sound acceleration is also enabled by going to the sound tab in dxdiag.

It took me ages to work this out, but it is very simple and does not require any work arounds/restarts/regedits/etc.

[hoak]

quinriva, yes I'm well aware of the default DirectX configuration on Server 2003 and have reset these.

But as I said earlier in the thread; depending on your video card and driver (typically Nvidia) you will see DirectX 3 reported in the driver properties, and all DirectX 9 files in the DirectX control panel. The issue is only with some application and games built for DirectX 8.1 and older...

Muppet Hunter, I have tried slipstreaming SP1 (see the title topic post), this is where the problem began, as Server 2003 sans SP1 does not have issues iwth any older DirectX applications. I have not tried your intall trick and will give that one a whirl.

softice offers another rout that seems to get DirectX 9c updated correctly (on SP1), but does not resolve the compatability issues with some older DirectX applicatons.

[Muppet Hunter]

Just a thought, but since SP1 'locks' some DX files, I wonder whether SFC (system file checking) is at work here. This can be disabled with nLite (or other methods).

[cow]

just figured i would add to the mix that i have this problem as well of nvidia reporting directx 3. i'm running windows server 2003 enterprise w/sp1 and nvidia forceware 84.21. i have been able to play older games like far cry and command and conquer generals but i just tried the tomb raider legend demo and it crashed to desktop.

kinda bums me out because i had the option of installing windows xp pro or server 2003 when building this machine and chose server 2003 because this is primarily a work machine and i will be doing .net development with sqlserver 2005 and figured the server os would be the way to go... i just do casual gaming at work but it would be nice if all games worked natively in server 2003 instead of having to dual boot with xp pro.

[fdv]

This may or may not be relevant, but HFSLIP about a month back added DX9c RE-slipstreaming to Windows 2003 specifically in order to fix this problem. Might want to give it a try. Download the 2003 hotfixes and the DX9c files. Although we added this, none of us have tested it (we've been busy with other things in the forum).

DX9c and instructions

Nothing to lose by trying!

(If you're ready to hit 'reply' and tell me Win2003 already has DX9c, re-read this post, but slower this time).

[Muppet Hunter]

I've just got around to using FDV's suggested method and I slipstreamed DX9c onto a 2k3 SP1 source.

I got the TommyP script, ran it and put BDAXP.cab and DXNT.cab (from the DX redist file) into the HFCABS folder.

This didn't work until I had a look at the script and made an alteration to line 391, replacing 'SP0' with 'SP1.

IF "!VERSION!"=="2003" IF "!SP!"=="SP0" IF EXIST HFCABS\BDAXP.CAB CALL :DX9C

This forces DX9c to be integrated, otherwise it assumes that you don't need it.

I don't know if this would solve the problems highlighted in this thread but it does seem to avoid the need to

rip out directx and then re-install it.

Some of the files seem to be 2k3 ones, but most are from the redist file.

Attached is a list of the directx components from dxdiag.

dxfiles.txt

[Tomcat76]

Hi Muppet Hunter.

I updated the HFSLIP code some time ago to have DX9c slipstreamed into Windows 2003 SP1 but removed it after some two weeks since noone seemed to care. I don't have this problem myself so I can't check if the solution works.

I couldn't find the test releases from back then so I had to do it over again. Try the latest test release here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=69809

It now allows 2K3SP1 to pass through the filter; it also makes sure there are no duplicate entries in TXTSETUP.SIF and DOSNET.INF.

Your dxdiag report is puzzling me, though. Why is it reporting that joy.cpl is missing when that file isn't installed for 2K3? The relevant line is commented out in dxnetsrv.inf and it's followed by the word "locked", indicating that it "doesn't apply"... So why is it complaining?

Edited July 17, 2006 by Tomcat76

[Muppet Hunter]

Hi Tomcat76

I've read the thread a few times over the last couple of months and I'm not exactly 100% sure what the driver version errors actually mean - I don't even think that I'm getting these same errors.

I re-integrated to try and achieve correctness in getting 2k3 as xp-like as possible, and also because no one had seemed to have done it before.

I used hfslip 60628 in my previous post and just d/loaded HFSLIP_60718exp1 (btw 60628 wouldn't integrate sp1 complaining of not having update/update.exe).

The "joy.cpl missing!" is probably due to nLite messing with the setup .inf files, and I've had it installed under 2k3 before.

I've attached 'before' and 'after' dx components listings if this helps you. The after is a re-edited version of the file I attached in the previous post; there's no sound card in my PC in the 'after' file - it'll be obvious what I mean if you compare both files.

I'll have to re-do a normal sp1 install to compare like with like.

Dx_B4.txt

Dx_After.txt

[Tomcat76]

I don't have this problem either so I'm totally walking in the dark here. I don't think, though, that it's necessary to replace certain files with their 9.0b counterparts with this method. Initially, Windows setup copies over the files, having know idea what it's doing; later on it realizes that it installed 9.0c and goes "oh well... what the hey..."

I suggest you upgrade to the newer release (719exp1 atm) if you want to continue testing this.

[Marcus Gray]

Hmm, when I installed SP1 nothing strange happened.

U used Nvidia Ti 4200 and got 'DX 3' in control panel, now use GF 6200, and nothing changed. Drivers are new. Heh, dxdiag.exe says:

9.0c [4.09.0000.0904] if anyone interested.

[Murmex]

Wew, I'm so glad to find such a topic right here...

Fistrly I'm glad that some of you guys found some solutions about this. I knew the downgrade method, but it poses problems now that some games requires 9.0c and it still won't install over 9.0b (at least for me).

I've met this problem some times ago after an update of Final Fantasy XI. The problem is that it takes a hell of time to install and update so it will be the main problem while testing ^^

The good thing is that I've taken a new approach for my reinstallations recently by using winnt32.exe. That means no iso creating/burning and 30 minutes for installation.

I hope I'll be able to help you in this matter as it is the biggest problem (from my point of view) for using win2k3 as a workstation.

[RJARRRPCGP]

DirectX 3?! That's NT 4ese! Makes me suspect that Microsoft got lazy by slipping in some NT 4 code!

Edited September 12, 2006 by RJARRRPCGP

[Lemonzest]

is this a nVidia only problem, as i've been using Server 2003 R2 Std for about 6 months now, and have never had a game complain about DirectX (did have to manual install DirectMusic tho) card in sig

[Zartach]

Ok, i have not tried this since i do not use server as a client, but this might do the trick.

Installing the DirectX SDK, it is the runtime and the development source etc. from the supported OS list it says that Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 is supported so this might be a good bet.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

Beware though this is a development pack, and the dload is 500ish MB. Witch is way larger than directX by itself. But it might do the trick. And if it does i am sure someone can create a light version (like miniXP)

Again, i did not try this as i do not have any server running client atm but it might be worth to test.

[Paradexes]

Just a couple of suggestions:

Try extracting all of 9.0b and 9.0c to separate directories and copy the following from 9.0b to 9.0c

dxsetup.exe

DSETUP.dll

dsetup32.dll

Apparently the 9.0c installer has a bug of some kind.

Slipstreaming SP1 (with nLite) may work?

Hope this helps.

This defintly worked for me in terms of it actually installing Dx9.0c from 9.0b. I did the downgrade and attempted to upgrade back. This seem to have done the trick. This is so far the easiest method I have seen to address this issue. It is an installer bug if you have an older DX on 2003.