Re: Dragon Age 2 crash on startup

Running in dx9 mode seems to be working. Thanks a bunch.

I have the same problem exept my problem was: I was playing on DX11 but I couldn't use fullscreen so I tried DX9. Now it crashes whenever I open the game. It shows the Dragon fly around the EA Symbol then stops. I can't get to the options to change them. Any Ideas? And if possible any ideas on Fixing the Fullscreen problem?

I've a solution to changing the settings for DX11 back that's fairly easy. However, it's been quite a while since I sat down and read up on the current problems so I'll be more hard pressed to find out how to help you with the fullscreen problem. Anyhow, on to the fix with enabling DX11. Simply doing the following step should fix it:

1. Located the file DragonAge.ini which should be stored in "Documents and settings/Bioware/Dragon Age 2/Settings" (presumingly that they use the same file structure on MacOS as on Windows, my PC has crashed so I can't check it for you).
2. Make a backup of the file and store it where you easily remember where it's.
3. Open the file in any texteditor (notepad, notepad++, emacs or whatever).
4. Find the line "UseDirectX11Renderer=0" under Vide🤭ptions and change it to "UseDirectX11Renderer=1".
5. Save the file.
6. Start the game.
7. If the game doesn't start up at all or if something behaves weirdly restore the ini file by using the backup and post a reply so I can figure something else out.

Now to your fullscreen problem. As I said before I'm not read up on the current problems and fixes but I can't come up with anything without a b it more information regarding the problem so if you could answer the following questions it might help. Furthermore, if I can't find a solution you might want to start a new thread regarding the fullscreen problem (when you have gotten DX11 working again) since it's quite far away from the topic of this thread. Therefore, you might get help from someone who knows the problem since before.

• How does it appear?
• Is the option in the settings greyed out or can you change it?
• Does it cause a crash or is it just that it doesn't have an effect?
• What is your system specification?
• Do you have a crash report?

Basically, for the fullscreen problem when I open the game it says "An Application is preventing this game in fullscreen, please close it and start atain"

I have no applications open exept for DA2 and It's really bothering me. The game plays but will be windowed. People have told me to change to DX9 but you know how that turned out. That's all I really know about it.

Okay, I might have found a solution to your problem. According to this thread on Bioware forum Windows Aero uses DX which can cause it to clash with the game. Hence, disabling the Aero when you play might help. Give it a try and see if it works.

This solution worked for me. Switching back to DX 9 did the trick.

This option worked for me, but in reverse.  I changed "UseDirectX11Renderer=1"  to "UseDirectX11Renderer=0".  Dragon Age 2 then would open and run.

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@CaiphasPaxton wrote:

This option worked for me, but in reverse.  I changed "UseDirectX11Renderer=1"  to "UseDirectX11Renderer=0".  Dragon Age 2 then would open and run.

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Of course, you're right, that was a misstake in my writing. Thanks for pointing it out. I've updated the guide now.

I have to say that under clocking my GPU back to it's normal clock stop the crashes and freezes I was having .

Thank you for the wonderful solution 

Changing to Direct X 9 also fixed the problem for me, thanks!

Same for me, it seems DirectX 9 fixed what was making it crash under DirectX 11. I haven't tried to run this game in years, I remember my first gaming PC, loading up with my then GTX 760 and DirectX 11 being borked with rainbow textures and never found out if they fixed it since at the time it was a driver issue. I have an RTX 2070 now so I couldn't go back to the driver that worked back then since that one was unsupported for the 900 series.