Has anyone found a solution/answer to the 'Failure at step 5 ...' problem with DirectX 8.1?

Newton's Cat

are you useing windows xp on a Via Chippset mobo with a Geforce 3 Vid card? Have you installed Via 4-in-1 drivers by any chance?

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YODA74@windows-sucks.com
CCMR (http://www.dreamwater.net/tech/yoda74/index.html)

PUSH TO TEST. RELEASE TO DETONATE.
[Closed captioned for the thinking impaired.]

I've surfed everywhere following this "riddle". The "toggle enable disable" trick doesn't work with me. My setup is rather different from most people's:

Soyo 5VA Pentium 200MMX
Jeronimo Pro 16meg Dual Monitor Card
Windows 98 (first edition) ....

But! - with OfficeXP installed.

When DirectDraw is disabled Direct3D is "unavailable". When DirectDraw is enabled Direct3D is "disabled". When enabled Direct3D fails the DirectX 8 test to give the "infamous":

Failure at step 5 (GetDeviceCaps) HRESULT = 0x8878086a (3D not available)

What DOES this error message mean?

Also:

Despite having 8megs per channel my card is slower than my old 2meg one. A diagnostic program declared that it's memory was only 512kb! There are 4x2 meg chips on the card. So how come only 512kb are apparently being used? Could DirectX be doing this I wonder?

Newton's Cat

?? try this In directXdiag every system has it just search for directx and you'll find it. Called directxdiag.exe (direct x diagnostic tool), well go to display and disable those 3 things in the bottom left: DirectDraw acceleration, D3D acceleration and AGP texture acceleration. Then re-enable them, should work just fine didn't know if this is what you were refering to by toggling?

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YODA74@windows-sucks.com
CCMR (http://www.dreamwater.net/tech/yoda74/index.html)

PUSH TO TEST. RELEASE TO DETONATE.
[Closed captioned for the thinking impaired.]

[This message has been edited by YODA74 (edited 06-02-2002).]