Possible fix Direct X 12 issue . Addition info to help with performance

[PhysX_Wolf]

I installed Hellblade : Senuas Sacrifice on my PC and got the error message of "your system doesn't support Dirct X 12 , Try relaunching with the -DX12 or - d3d12 arguement line ".I was like "How?" looked around. Some people said they had done stuff ,but didnt tell you how exactly . I tried looking on youtube and most videos were on about comparing the standard version and the enhanced version .

Heres how I discovered a cure/fix . I clicked on Geforce experience , found the game , I clicked on optimise , revert . which ever one did it . You will soon tell , as the game will run then . Once started , you can tweak the game how you like it . I am running on high ( I just turned Distance and shadows to medium ) My card is a 980 GTX , 4 Gig Vram and doing incredibly well . Its a non ref card , used for over 13 years and hasnt stopped amazing me .

( You dont have to read ...but it may help you understand stuff . If you understand/ know this already , then you have already done this )
Also , try setting the physx in the Nvidia Control panel to your cards GPU (mines set like that already . I DID have a seperate card for that , I kept to that driver that had the "dedicate to" check box . But after ear ache off people that my 980 GTX can do PhysX and graphics . I had a word with Nvidia and they said that is correct , so I pulled out my 460 GTX , updated the driver . Also Me and many others "In the know " Know what PhysX really is and what it can do . Some folks dont even know what it is and have never switched it on in their games . They soooo miss out on this featute and some say "PhysX -Thats a blast from the past ". It is STILL used , but not like it is in games like in Batman games, Borderlands games , metro games (Metro Redux uses these features) , Terminator Salvation Alice:Madness Returns , Cryostasis , Dark Void , The Witcher 3 , Mafia games and more . Apparently... Life is Strange uses GPU Physx . MY POINT Hellblade is using PhysX for the vegitation interaction ( This is not on Xbox One version . The leaves dont react to Suana or other items . Their movement is from the wind . ) In the PC version , The leaves and bushes react and brush against her , her hair is PhysX based , sparks while fighting bounce , The fluids around the spirit charcters are that . The environmental particles (sparks , rain , debris , myst is also that . So doing that on the CPU ...of course theres gonna be stuttering and frame dropping .

Note: There may also be an issue with PhysX and AMD cards , as there was a bit of a thing where Nvidia did want PhysX on there cards even if the secondary card was Nvidia , the PhysX wouldnt work right or at all .

Clean : It sounds like a silly thing to think but alot of people , leave their PC to build up dust and cob webs, this can cause excessive heat and cause performance issues. Get a paint brush and dust stuff off

Check your Bios : Even though your processor could be 6 to 8 cores or more ...sometimes additional core are off by default and theres an option that says "Enable cores (3 and 4 on mine ) but on yours may say enable cores 6 to 8 . You may only be using two cores of the 8.

Dont get greedy or silly on settings . Of course its very tempting to switch everything on in games , HDR, RTX 4K res , 120 fps , ultra detail . This can make stuff stutter as the cards getting SUPER hot and hampering performance . Some peoples comps possible do great with all these features ...as they have water cooling . If its running nicely on high , looks fantastic , there's no need to really push stuff. If everything is stuttery , try changing some settings until it runs nicely . Appreciate what you have . As stated I am playing on High for most , Shadows and distance medium . It crashed twice but that's withing hours of playing .

Knock off the internet while playing this can add to the stress on your CPU while playing .
Ensure you have enough space on your HDD SDD as low space can cause this . I had Bayonetta working great on High detail , then clogged up the HDD with games . Tried play and it ran like a sack of poop . cleared of a lot of games and it worked nicely again .

I hope this has help someone or a few people .

Thanks for reading .

[MASTAN]

If you have that error message supply game with "-dx11" command line argument. I guess Geforce Experience switched to DX11 directly in settings file which also can fix this.
The problem is that by default game tries to run in DX12 mode and if fails then instead of switching to DX11 it shows ambiguous error message.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Hellblade:_Senua%27s_Sacrifice#Game_fails_to_run_with_the_DX12_is_not_supported_on_your_system._message

[PhysX_Wolf]

Good news is I have i running now . Its running pretty decently too . I put about the PhysX stuff incase thats causing people machines to run like crap . My comps old but does quite well . I was frustrated when I first got he message > I tried to see how to fix it and couldnt find anything . So kinda proud when I found the answer on my own .



Windows 7 OEM
Crosshair V Formula MB
16 Gig or Corsair RAM at 1866
GTX 980
PSU AX1200
600 gig HDD

Old set up , but managed to play Little Nighmares , Murdered Soul Suspect , Metamophosis , Blair Witch Project ,Unforgiving a Northern Hymn , Through The Woods , The Signifier and more . Hellgate ran straight away on my laptop ages back . I dont think they had a choice of Direct X 11 or 12 back then . I DO appreciate that some devs think about those who have Windows 7 too. I am lucky my laptop is Windows !0, as I went through my games and have a total of 27 windows 10 only games . I have also notice how in Unreal engine 4 theres no ini files to edit . Well, I think now devs have made it so we cant do that .

[PhysX_Wolf]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

If you have that error message supply game with "-dx11" command line argument. I guess Geforce Experience switched to DX11 directly in settings file which also can fix this.
The problem is that by default game tries to run in DX12 mode and if fails then instead of switching to DX11 it shows ambiguous error message.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Hellblade:_Senua%27s_Sacrifice#Game_fails_to_run_with_the_DX12_is_not_supported_on_your_system._message

I have just had a little read and thanks . This is very useful information and very much appreciated . Hope you are kinda impressed on my solution too . I dont really know about this stuff.

[MASTAN]

Yes, previously game was DX11 only and that's why everything was fine. Your hardware is capable of DX12 but Win7 prevents it.

No ini files to edit in UE4? All Unreal Engine 4 games I've seen have several ini files, for Hellblade they're in %LOCALAPPDATA%\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\. Mostly in GameUserSettings.ini.

[PhysX_Wolf]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Yes, previously game was DX11 only and that's why everything was fine. Your hardware is capable of DX12 but Win7 prevents it.

No ini files to edit in UE4? All Unreal Engine 4 games I've seen have several ini files, for Hellblade they're in %LOCALAPPDATA%\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\. Mostly in GameUserSettings.ini.

Where are those . The used to be under Binaries and game engine . The used to put them in My Documents under "My games " or the name of the game

[PhysX_Wolf]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Yes, previously game was DX11 only and that's why everything was fine. Your hardware is capable of DX12 but Win7 prevents it.

No ini files to edit in UE4? All Unreal Engine 4 games I've seen have several ini files, for Hellblade they're in %LOCALAPPDATA%\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\. Mostly in GameUserSettings.ini.

Tahnks for that . But most of the files are blank . The Other ones allowed you to turn PhysX Hardware excelleration on an off , Turn motion blur on and off , Set usemimumnvidiashader optimisation= True to false , set shadow quality , and various other bits and pieces . The ones there are very basic .

[MASTAN]

Just input

%LOCALAPPDATA%\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\

into your explorer path and it'll open. Technically it should be C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor but since username is different for everyone the former way is preferable.

Most settings are in GameUserSettings.ini. But game also checks other files too. Usually you can adjust more settings than UE4 game allows, see this page: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Engine:Unreal_Engine_4

[PhysX_Wolf]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Just input

%LOCALAPPDATA%\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\

into your explorer path and it'll open. Technically it should be C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\HellbladeGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor but since username is different for everyone the former way is preferable.

Most settings are in GameUserSettings.ini. But game also checks other files too. Usually you can adjust more settings than UE4 game allows, see this page: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Engine:Unreal_Engine_4

Any Idea where I can find the option command line "bdisablephysxhardwareaccelleration=True" I THOUGHT it was using the GPU but when I put on the PhysX indicator it said PhysX>CPU . Still impressive, but just wondered if it would benefit doing calculations on the GPU .

[MASTAN]

How to set command line: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/7D01-D2DD-D75E-2955
I haven't heard about this option, dunno if it will work. PhysX HW acceleration is usually set only in Nvidia's control panel: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2700/~/disabling-nvidia-physx-gpu-acceleration

I found only this mention of such option: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/user/361108/ . Judging from its name setting it to True should disable hardware acceleration, not enable it.

[PhysX_Wolf]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

How to set command line: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/7D01-D2DD-D75E-2955
I haven't heard about this option, dunno if it will work. PhysX HW acceleration is usually set only in Nvidia's control panel: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2700/~/disabling-nvidia-physx-gpu-acceleration

I found only this mention of such option: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/user/361108/ . Judging from its name setting it to True should disable hardware acceleration, not enable it.

OMG! The third one ... Thats ME! . I'm famous ! Lol

[PhysX_Wolf]

PhysX is set to my GPU but still said PhysX> CPU . Its doing some stuff with PhysX as I stated , Foliage reacts to Suana , particles are better and bahave how they should and some things like fluids around spirit forms react better . I also think cloth and hair is PhysX stuff . Sadly some of those are not present on the Xbox One /X not sure about XboX Series S/X or PS5.

[Cryiox]

• Game works fine on AMD
• It doesn't have Physx problems
• Everyone should run it in DX12. The shader stuttering goes away in a few minutes
• Everyone should play either with DLSS or for non-RTX Nvidia/AMD/Intel GPUs, to use the FSR2 mod, CyberFSR 0.8 Beta 2 and then enable DLSS in-game for a performance boost.

[PhysX_Wolf]

I played the Series X version (well it upgraded my game from the Xbox One X version. Those things are present in the S/X version. ).

I finished is no probs on my Predator Helios 300 , no issues . Even the Sea of Corpses worked well.

My desktop :
AMD quad core bulldozer
16 gig Corsair Vengeance @ 1866
AX1200 PSU
With my new graphics card RTX 3080 ti
Win 7 OEM

Worked well , up full , until the trials then crashed sometimes .

[Cryiox]

A 3080 Ti with W7 and an AMD FX 4100. Wow.