I recently had the most perplexing, baffling error when trying to run GTA V. The launcher would crash when trying to load the game, without giving any specific error. It did, however, give the option to try to run the game again in “safe mode”. Safe mode also crashed out, but it did give an error to search for: ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT.

When Googling this error, I found a lot of suggestions for fixing the problem. None of them worked for me. I wasted many hours searching and attempting fixes that didn’t work, until I found a Youtube video by a god among men who offered a solution to this error which ultimately and finally solved the problem. Then I was able to play GTA V again, in its full glory!

Before I share this solution with you, you should know that if I’d had this solution in the beginning, I doubt it would have solved the problem. There were a series of events which caused issues with my install of Windows 10. These issues needed to be addressed first.

I’ll try to keep this as short and concise as possible. Here’s my situation: as some of you know, I dual boot Windows 10 and Linux.  The error ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT has nothing directly to do with dual booting. Except that I’m using Linux 99.9% of the time. Which means Windows 10 can go for months without being updated. Plus, knowing I’m facing hours of Windows updates when all I want to do is play up GTA V sort of kept me from bothering to put up with the ordeal of booting into Windows. So over time, the list of uninstalled updates accumulated.

Well, one day I was just hell-bent on playing GTA V. So I booted up into Windows 10 and skipped the updates. All I wanted to do was have some fun with GTA V and be done with it. On opening the launcher, GTA V itself had about 10 gigs of updates to download, which was not unexpected. Fine. I downloaded the GTA V updates then launched the game. It crashed. Safe mode also crashed, giving ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT.

FML.

Has the install somehow become corrupted or something? Well, I found that the launcher can do a full system scan using the GTAVLauncher.exe -verify command. Everything checked out, yet the game still crashed on launching.

Ok, it stands to reason that an updated install of GTA V is not expecting to be ran on an operating system that hasn’t been updated in a year. Fine. I’ll bite the bullet install the damn Windows updates. Creators update, Anniversary update, and WTF ever updates. I did it all.

12 hours. Yes, TWELVE fucking hours later, the Windows updates were finished. For 12 hours, my laptop was a useless paperweight. Microsoft, do you think I have time for this shit? And when the updates were finally finished, the only difference I noticed was that Windows now offers *trivia questions* about its login screen background photos.

Really?? Fuck you! Log me onto the damn desktop.

Same damn crash, same damn launcher error. And as I would find out, there were underlying issues going on here that I was not aware of or anticipating. In typical Microsoft fashion, major updates like that often play havoc on a former functioning install of Windows. Of course, I’m left to pick up the pieces and fix this shit. So, hmm.

Well, the NVIDA driver hasn’t been updated in a year. Fine. I took care of that. Same damn crash with GTA V. And furthermore, the NVIDIA control panel is no longer opening, dual monitors are no longer functioning. I believe the error was “NVIDIA display settings are not available. You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDA GPU.”

WHAT??

Hmm. OK. After further research, there’s the Windows Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) from Guru3D, the kind of ingenious utility that shit operating systems like Windows needs, because it can’t walk without tripping over its own feet. So I properly uninstalled all traces of prior NVIDIA drivers in Windows 10 safe mode, using DDU, and then got the most recent NVIDIA driver installed. Great. Checked the NVIDIA control panel. “NVIDIA display settings are not available. You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDA GPU.”

FML. OK. Let’s check Device Manager. It indicates NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M is working correctly and without errors. However, Intel (R) HD Graphics 530, the onboard CPU graphics driver shows that there’s some kind of problem. Initially, I didn’t give AF because I don’t use it. Its capability is feeble. Its next to useless compared to NVIDIA.

However, after much more research into the NVIDIA problem and nothing working, I finally discovered that for whatever reason, NVIDIA needs the Intel graphics chip to be functioning. Fine. I correctly suspected the issue causing the above-mentioned device manager error was the Intel graphicsdriver. So there’s already an Intel graphics driver present and installed on the system. Shall I just use it and hope it doesn’t get fucked up again? Hmm. I checked Intel’s website and there’s an updated version of that driver. Fine. I opted to just install that one instead. All 300 MB of it.

So now the NVIDIA control panel is operating normally. Great! Running GTAVLauncher.exe -verify again confirms that the install files are correct. Let’s play GTA V. I’m still I’m getting ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT. FML!

DxDiag.exe indicates nothing is wrong. There was a suggesting of uninstalling and reinstalling GTA V. If memory serves, that was an ordeal that took a good 8 hours.  I am not going to do that, on top of all this other shit.

I found GTA V in Add or Remove Programs. Maybe the uninstaller gives the option to repair the install? It does! So I had it perform that operation. I happily swapped out a few install DVDs the installer asked for. Excitement was building in anticipation of the game being fixed. After the repair had finished… no go. I was still getting ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT.

I went on to manually edit GTA V’s configuration text file, enabling windowed mode, setting it to use DirectX 10 instead of DirectX 11, turning off tessellation. None of that shit worked. Same error.

I was just about to give up. But then, after what I thought would be further fruitless research into the issue, by chance I found the above-mentioned video posted by a god among men which offered the one and only solution which fixed this problem.

1. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder in which GTA V is installed
2. Delete the files PLAYGTA5.EXE and GTA5.EXE
3. Open GTA5ALAUNCHER.EXE

These two files together are about 84 MB in size. The launcher will detect that those key files are missing, and will download them again. However, the launcher downloads about 900 MB of data. IDK WTF that’s about. At this point, I don’t even care. But I’m assuming the launcher is doing something along the lines of rebuilding its interface with DirectX or OpenGL or Direct3D or WTF ever. In any case, after this was finished, THE GAME LOADED AND PLAYED NORMALLY! Hallelujah!

Why there isn’t a button that appears in the launcher whenever the ERR_GFX_D3D_INIT error occurs, which gives the user the option to performs whatever kind of repair this hack actually instigates, is beyond me. I couldn’t tell you. All I know is this worked for me. And I hope it works for you. Good luck, and enjoy GTA V, my friends.