Battlefield 1 players on PC are getting DirectX errors with the latest NVIDIA drivers installed, and DICE is steadily working to address the problem. While the developers toil away, we’ve found a fix that works for some. In the meantime, you can also check out some official suggestions too.
The Official Word : As those experiencing this problem will likely recall, the error in question reads “DirectX Function "GetDeviceRemovedReason" failed with DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG. GPU: "Nvidia GeForce GTX 690", Driver: 37306.”
Through a variety of posts on the Battlefield 1 forums, we know that investigation is currently underway to find a solution. One developer in particular noted that crashes were triggered by an outdated Realtek audio driver. Once that had been updated, the problems resolved. Beyond that, DICE continues to work with NVIDIA to find more information.
The Temporary Workaround : Because new NVIDIA drivers seem to be the root cause of the problem, one verified way to solve this DirectX incompatibility is to roll back the current drivers to the previous version. We’ll list the steps involved in doing that below.
Cleaning Out The Old Drivers : In order to put the old drivers back on your PC, we first need to get rid of the new ones. A good program capable of doing that is Display Driver Uninstaller. It can be downloaded here. 7-Zip may be necessary to extract the program. Get that here.
- With everything extracted, open “Display Driver Uninstaller.exe”
- Choose the option to launch in safe mode and let everything reboot
- In the main interface select “clean and restart” and let the app do its thing. Once the process is complete, the bad video drivers will be removed
Reinstalling The Good Ones: For most folks the most functional drivers for Battlefield 1 are 334.89. Download those here and install as normal.
Getting Around Security : Battlefield 1 has a feature that detects if the user has the latest PC graphics drivers installed. For now we need to disable it so we can run the old drivers.
Open up Notepad and start a new text file. Copy the text exactly as it’s written below into the document:
- if exist C:WindowsSystem32nvapi64.Old goto Old
- chdir /d C:WindowsSystem32
- ren nvapi64.dll nvapi64.Old
- echo @ Named
- goto End
- chdir /d C:WindowsSystem32
- ren nvapi64.Old nvapi64.dll
- echo @ Renamed
- goto End
Next, file/save as it as “Rename.BAT” without quotations. Right click the .BAT and run as administrator. The script you just made will remove the driver check, and Battlefield 1 will boot.
Final Tips : If the paste doesn’t work from this article, it may be better to use the one found here. It may also be wise to disable any automatic driver updates in Windows 10 or NVIDIA Geforce Experience. Here’s a good guide for doing that in Windows 10. In most cases your PC should ask you about video driver updates first, however.
Like all PC guides, this one should only be performed by those with a certain degree of platform knowledge. Otherwise, because DICE is aware of the problem, an official fix is probably coming soon. This isn’t the first PC issue to be found in the Battlefield 1 fall update. Late last week we also documented a graphics downgrade that’s getting lots of attention.
In addition to PC, Battlefield 1 is also available on PS4 and Xbox One.
Have you been getting any DirectX or driver errors while playing Battlefield 1 on PC? Tell us in the comments section!
