SOLVED > Failed to load DX9 DLL

[mrbehemo]

I've been having the "Failed to load DX9 DLL" problem since Friday and have just solved it.

The issue is that the DX9 redist installer doesn't overwrite the DLLs in your system folder if they are newer. Here's what to do:

1) Find out what DLL is the problem.
Go to the game folder (eg. "C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\South Park - The Stick of Truth\") and run "South Park - The Stick of Truth.exe" outside of the Steam client. You should get a separate error message that will tell you what DLL is broken. In my case it was "d3dx9_43.dll".

2a) Get the DLL. What I did:
Unpack all the of relevant CAB files in the DX9 redist folder: "C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\South Park - The Stick of Truth\_CommonRedist\DirectX\Jun2010". There are a lot. By relevant I mean that I have a 32bit system, so I unpacked the CAB files ending in "...x86.cab". If you have a 64bit system you want the "...x64.cab" ones. Find the newest version of the problem DLL.

2b) Alternatively, you could try searching for it and downloading it, but personally I think (2a) is safer.

3) Copy it to your system folder, in my case System32. I assume that if you have 64bit then it will be called System64 or something similar.

Now try launching again... That should do it!

[portiaevl]

alternatively, download the latest direct x redistributable from msdn and it should then work..
following the steps above are silly.. as

(1) from the last part its clear the user doesnt know what they're talking about (assumption of system64)..

(2) "The issue is that the DX9 redist installer doesn't overwrite the DLLs in your system folder if they are newer." - by that logic it would never update...

[Heron]

By 'unpack' do you mean like use winRAR to find it?

[Heron]

Originally posted by portiaevl:

alternatively, download the latest direct x redistributable from msdn and it should then work..
following the steps above are silly.. as

(1) from the last part its clear the user doesnt know what they're talking about (assumption of system64)..

(2) "The issue is that the DX9 redist installer doesn't overwrite the DLLs in your system folder if they are newer." - by that logic it would never update...

The redistribute didnt work for me

[mrbehemo]

Portiaevi, that's exactly what the problem was - it didn't update. Of course I tried downloading the latest redist. I'm not an idiot. The thing that lead me to try this as a last resort was the eventual diagnosis that the redist was not actually updating the DLLs in the system folder. Don't ask me why. Manually copying did make a difference though. And as Microwave, and many, many other people on this and the Obsidian forum have noted, the redist doesn't fix this issue!

Originally posted by portiaevi:

by that logic it would never update

No, by that logic it would never roll back, which is what is required here.

I've been troubleshooting this for days now and while I might not know what system folders are named on 64bit systems because I don't have one, I do have some idea what I'm talking about.

[mrbehemo]

Microwave, yup, WinRAR would do it.

[Heron]

Originally posted by MrBehemoth:

Microwave, yup, WinRAR would do it.

Thanks but It wont let me move it to my System32 folder.

[Heron]

I just did all of the steps but it still wont work! Im quite annoyed as ive been working at this for hours

[portiaevl]

arent all the dx updates cumulative? pretty sure they are and thats how we get the _43.dll etc... blindly copying files into the system folder isnt really one thing i'd recommend, which was the point i was trying to make.. perhaps its some mixup ubi made when making the installation.. my game wont even unlock yet (sigh) so i cant even look to see what would be going on...

oh, also.. what os are you running op?

[mrbehemo]

Vista. I agree it's risky, but at this point I'd try anything. If anything goes wrong then the DX9 redist should put everything back as it's "supposed" to be.

Microwave, did you manage to copy into the system folder? If not, do you have an admin account?

[portiaevl]

puting it in the game folder might work too..

odd it happens on vista, was expecting 8.0 or 8.1 problems, but not vista.. maybe run ccleaner and see if somethings messed up

[Heron]

I still havnt managed to fix it.

[Paranoidi]

Launching the game outside steam does not provide any additional error message. Sucks on console due censored scenes and does not work on steam, good job!

[Paranoidi]

Game tries to install VC Redist packages which can fail by having newer versions already installed. Uninstall latest packages with commands:

MsiExec.exe /passive /X{F0C3E5D1-1ADE-321E-8167-68EF0DE699A5}
MsiExec.exe /passive /X{1D8E6291-B0D5-35EC-8441-6616F567A0F7}

And then relaunch the game, it starts now for me. Those removed packages can then be installed over again if needed. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ testing by obsidian. Anyone installing windows and updating it to very latest service packs and patches and THEN launching the game will have this issue.

[JustHayden]

I don't get a separate error message like OP describes and it's not a very user friendly solution.

@Paranoidi I tried your solution and it simply doesn't work, just gives me an error code that has to do with parts of VB missing.

I would appreciate a simpler step of instructions that I can follow outside of steam to resolve this DX9 issue.

[Paranoidi]

Sorry to hear that, seems like there are several reasons why the game fails to start.