GSDX Cannot initialize DirectX9?

[AllUltima]

GSDX 3693 (all 3 versions, SSE2, 3, 4.1) all crash when I try to run a game using Hardware DirectX 9.0. DirectX 10 and software modes work fine. I tried disabling all speed hacks, game fixes, and every custom option in the plugin config.

I have verified that my computer has DirectX installed correctly, and I can render using the D3D9 render path in benchmarking utilities without issue.

In Persona 3, there is a huge, annoying floor texture glitch in DX10 HW mode, but not software mode. I wanted to try DX9 hardware mode for comparison, but I can't...

What actually happens is there is an appcrash for pcxs2-r3878.exe as soon as I start a game with dx9 or switch to dx9 mode in-game.
Fault Module Name: gsdx-sse2-r3878.dll
Fault Module Version: 1.0.1.9
Fault Module Timestamp: 4cab1e3e
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00039825

Software:
Windows 7 Professional x64
PCSX2 0.9.7.3876m
GSDX 3693 SSE2 (or 3 or 4.1)
Nvidia drivers are current (260.99)

Hardware:
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz (clocked at 3.6ghz)
6gb DDR3 1750mhz
BFG Geforce GTX 285 OC 1GB (666mhz GPU)

[avih]

Disable hardware antialiasing.

[AllUltima]

Thanks for the suggestion, but that doesn't seem to be it.

First, I don't see an option for that in the panel (only an option for the software mode). But I went over to the nvidia control panel and disabled all AA globally and GSDX still crashes.

[avih]

PCSX2 requires that you update to the latest DirectX drivers (June 2010? or is it 2009?), even if DX9 works well for you on other games. Run the web update to make sure you're up to date. It's available from the downloads page.

[AllUltima]

PCSX2 requires that you update to the latest DirectX drivers (June 2010? or is it 2009?), even if DX9 works well for you on other games. Run the web update to make sure you're up to date. It's available from the downloads page.

Tried that too... then I even tried also getting a redistributable of DX9 only. But that didn't help. I suppose I could try completely removing it and reinstalling it from scratch.

[avih]

Just to completely rule out the antialiasing thing, could you make sure that GSdx.ini at your inis folder has msaa set to 0? (to make sure it's the right folder, make some changes to GSdx settings and watch for them at the ini fie).

I'd also try it with stock system settings (no OC for CPU/GPU), just to rule it out.

And, as the last thing I can suggest, you could try an older PCSX2 beta version as a reference. Go back as far as Feb-2010 (r1888), through the plugins update on march, and then the previous beta (r3113). You can find these versions here.

The big GSdx change that I'm aware of happened AFTER the march plugins update.

Not much else I can think of...

[AllUltima]

Just to completely rule out the antialiasing thing, could you make sure that GSdx.ini at your inis folder has msaa set to 0?

That was it. It was set to 4, and my way of disabling AA must have been insufficient. Thanks for the tip. Now I can do DX9 just fine.

I should also point it out that in an ideal world there'd be a bit more feedback when failing to initialize DirectX than an appcrash

[avih]

Glad it worked. It sounded like the FSAA thing to me from the second I read your symptoms. The AA option is only visible on the GSdx config panel if you use allowHacks=1 at GSdx.ini, so I don't really know how it got enabled for you. Anyway, It's a known regression since r3002.

Re: more error/crash feedback, you're right, however, these days GSdx doesn't seem to get much love from a development point of view, in part due to the fact that the original developer - Gabest, stopped working on it, and it's apparently not an easy code to get into.

That being said, this AA crash regression happened after Gabest became inactive with GSdx. It works on earlier GSdx plugins also in DX9, but I'm not sure they're compatible with current PCSX2. You can give it a try though.