DDO debugging issues (as crowdsourced by many players advice)

[rabidfox]

 

[Neain]

in case anyone is curious about how they got that second menu, you right click the ddo icon, and then you again right click the ddo icon IN the menu. (only posting this because I have met people who would need this explained)

 

[rabidfox]

Updated directions for installing DirectX 9 to make easier to follow.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109 (this version may be the better choice for people or just try both versions to insure best odds one of them gets things installed correctly as Windows + Old things like DX9 libraries can be a pain). This version extracts a bunch of files onto your computer, put them in a folder that's easy to find (like on your desktop), then open that folder and run DXSETUP as admin.

 

[Stoner81]

Is there a fix for in-game voice chat not getting high enough to hear over any other sounds?
All my other ddo sounds can go plenty high to hear them (some a bit too high. GM audio) but ddo voice even with all the settings related to it at max, will get drowned out by even just having Pandora on in the background or a car going past outside or even my cat meowing from closer than 10 ft away.

Each person in your group has a slider so you can turn them up and down but beyond that it is on their end mostly. I have the audio for DDO turned down a lot for this reason but I now mostly use Discord anyway. If the above doesn't work then the people on the other end need to boost their microphone gain within Windows. Beyond that not much else you can do.

Stoner81.

 

[Stoner81]

One big thing which will help eliminate issue is to not install the game in to the Program Files directory! Windows 10 and 11 are very very twitchy with anything in those folders and with the game updating etc it can cause severe issues. Instead it would be better to have a directory at the root of the drive named Games and install DDO there, so the path would look like this:

C:\Games\DDO

All games (imho) should be put here in this Games folder (it's how my own set up is). All my game launchers like Steam, EA, Epic etc are all in there in their own folders.

Stoner81.

 

[pinstripedbarbarian]

Ran into the "connection to patch server" problem, and after messing around with things for a good while, the -disablepatch thing worked first try. Thank you so much for the help and easy-to-follow pictures!

 

[Onyxia2016]

@rabidfox Thank you for putting this together. Lots of good info.

 

[Dudley]

I just had the issue on a new laptop and it was 100% number 10, only thing I had to change.

 

[rabidfox]

I just had the issue on a new laptop and it was 100% number 10, only thing I had to change.

#10 seems to be a very common issue. It and needing to manually install directX seem to be the typical fixes that work for folks.

 

[rabidfox]

If getting a black screen/hanging when trying to start the game via launcher, check your anti-virus to make sure it isn't blocking the game.

Had the same thing : I had no problem launching the game since 2005. Turns out it was my anti-malware (specifically the real-time Malware Protection) that no longer allowed the dndclient64.exe to launch. Maybe try to launch it while deactivating whatever you have.

 

[Ragrude the Reclusive]

@ Rabidfox

It's definitely MALWAREBYTES (I have pro)
- shut down Malwarebytes and the game loads up with WIN Defender on.

cycled through servers for weekly rolls
* Some servers took a long time to log out and had to use task manager to shut down a few.

 

[rabidfox]

Some folks have reported that their FPS rates appear to running lower than expected; like there's a hard cap on the FPS rate happening. It's been mentioned by a couple people that swapping to fullscreen (non-windowed mode) and then back one's normal fullscreen (windowed mode) made things run at expected FPS rates again.

 

[QuantumFX]

I got a guildie who can't get any resolutions other than 1024x768. We've tried:
1) Manually changing the display device in the launcher from Automatic to his AMD graphics card. (aka #10)
2) Disabling Malwarebytes
3) Changing the DPI settings (#16), then reverting the changes after not seeing any changes.
4) Verified that the display adapter is the only adapter in the Device Manager.
5) Installing DirectX 9.0c
6) Ran game as Administrator.
7) Renaming the Dungeons and Dragons folder in his Documents folder, and letting DDO make new files.
8) Tried running the 32 bit client.
9) He's also experiencing THIS PROBLEM, but I'm not sure the issues are related.

Any ideas on what we should try next?

OS: Windows 10 x64
DX version: 12
Latest AMD drivers per their installer.
No pending Win 10 updates

 

[rabidfox]

I got a guildie who can't get any resolutions other than 1024x768. We've tried:
1) Manually changing the display device in the launcher from Automatic to his AMD graphics card. (aka #10)
2) Disabling Malwarebytes
3) Changing the DPI settings (#16), then reverting the changes after not seeing any changes.
4) Verified that the display adapter is the only adapter in the Device Manager.
5) Installing DirectX 9.0c
6) Ran game as Administrator.
7) Renaming the Dungeons and Dragons folder in his Documents folder, and letting DDO make new files.
8) Tried running the 32 bit client.
9) He's also experiencing THIS PROBLEM, but I'm not sure the issues are related.

Any ideas on what we should try next?

OS: Windows 10 x64
DX version: 12
Latest AMD drivers per their installer.
No pending Win 10 updates

You could backup and then try manually editing the userpreferences.ini file in their document folder to see if you get something to play nice.

You can try manual resolutions, switching between fullscreen/windowed fullscreen mode, various directX modes, etc. to see if anything sticks and works for them with stuff like these as examples in those settings:
Resolution=1920x1080
ScreenMode=FullScreenWindowed
WindowedResolution=1920x1080
GraphicsCore=D3D10

 

[QuantumFX]

You could backup and then try manually editing the userpreferences.ini file in their document folder to see if you get something to play nice.

You can try manual resolutions, switching between fullscreen/windowed fullscreen mode, various directX modes, etc. to see if anything sticks and works for them with stuff like these as examples in those settings:
Resolution=1920x1080
ScreenMode=FullScreenWindowed
WindowedResolution=1920x1080
GraphicsCore=D3D10

Thanks for trying to help! Edited the settings to the suggestions above, and DDO loaded to 1024x768. The only resolutions listed are 1024x768. I did notice another odd behavior. When he hits Alt+Enter to go to full screen mode, DDO doesn't go to full screen. It pins itself to the upper left corner of the screen, and the mouse can only move in that area, but the rest of the windows background is just sitting behind it. Any ideas?

 

[rabidfox]

Usually I'd say one of these:
Manually changing the display device in the launcher from Automatic to his AMD graphics card. (aka #10)
Latest AMD drivers per their installer.
Installing DirectX 9.0c
Windows DPI settings

But you said you already tried them. You might try giving the DDO-wrapper installer for files DDO uses & DirectX just in case the prior install missed something (grasping at straws a bit) and then reboot after installing via it. https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/ddo-wrapper-custom-installer.244/

 

[rabidfox]

And if that doesn't help but you find something else that does, let me know so I can add it to the list of fixes.

 

[Onyxia2016]

Depending on your setup, verify the GPU the game is using. For example I have a laptop that has both the iGPU (Intel as well as a Nvidia GPU.
originally the game only used the iGPU. What was strange is that selecting the GPU from the launcher did not see to do anything. I switched it in the Nvidia control panel and it work.

This may not be related, just wanted to mention it.

 

[Opyt]

I could also point out that although DirectX12 is shown to be installed on the computer, the game only sees DirectX11. This also occurs on my computer, though I don't have either of the other issues of the guildy in question. Probably not related, but might be worth mentioning, just in case? I find what interacts with things in programs this size isn't always predictable. To me, at least.

 

[rabidfox]

I could also point out that although DirectX12 is shown to be installed on the computer, the game only sees DirectX11. This also occurs on my computer, though I don't have either of the other issues of the guildy in question.

That's because the game only supports DX9, DX10, &DX11. They haven't coded it to use DX12 stuff.