Windows Layout & Direct X issue

I seem to have come across a bug or potential issue with Windows Layouts and Direct11 when playing World of Warcraft.

It appears that if I add a windows layout to my character set, WoW will always revert back to using DirectX 9, it will refuse to run in DirectX 11. I have search the forums and the rest of the world wide web to see if this is a know issue or a common bug. But I have found nothing.

I was initially having problems getting wow to run under directx 11 when launching my character sets, it would never hold the directx 11 setting, even when I deleted and recreated my virtual config.wtf files forcing it to recreate based on my none mulitboxing wow config, every time it would revert. I had no problems running wow outside of isboxer in directx 11, and even running my wow profile from the system tray icon would hold the directx 11 setting. I tried many things and nothing worked. Until I stumbled across running a character set without a window layout defined, this simply runs my WoW clients (5 of them) at 1920x1080 stacked and allows directx 11 to function.

Currently I am ok with this, but eventually I would like to start using a second monitor with dxnothing window to organise some of my things, it can get a bit tricky playing with 5 fullscreen wow clients.

Is this something that is known about or simply a limitation of the current release?

Just for info, I am running Windows 7 Ultimate on a i5 3570k with plenty of ram (32GB), my gfx card is a MSI Radeon HD7980. I also updated to the latest catalyst drivers several times during my infuriating testing, currently on 14.4

Cheers

Ktemredhel

[MiRai]

Is this something that is known about or simply a limitation of the current release?

The only setting that should affect which version of DX is being used, is the setting that's set in the game client.

Now, Inner Space used to create (I'm not sure if it still does) specific DX9 and DX11 Game Profiles for World of Warcraft. If you happened to be using the DX9 profile, then your game clients would always launch using DX9 regardless of what you chose in the in-game settings, but because you say that once you remove the Window Layout from your Character Set the game can launch using DX11, then I have to assume you're not using the DX9 Game Profile.

Other than that, I don't know why a Window Layout would directly affect which version of DX you were trying to use unless you were trying to launch DX11 on a non-primary GPU (as assigned through Windows). Do you have multiple GPUs? Are you trying to launch these game clients on a non-primary GPU?

[lax]

There is no known issue or limitation with Direct3D 11 mode not working in World of Warcraft, no.

This sounds more like you have selected a Game Profile for WoW that includes the -d3d9 parameter. By default if Inner Space detected the game you should have World of Warcraft Default Profile, World of Warcraft DirectX 9, and World of Warcraft DirectX 11 game profiles. The DirectX 9 one will tell the game to use DirectX 9, overriding the setting stored in config.wtf or selected in the in-game options screen.

Therefore the first thing I would do is go into the top left pane in ISBoxer under Characters, and select each one. Check the Game and Game Profile drop-down boxes. If you want it to use Direct3D 11, then I would pick the Game Profile that specifies it. If you do not have those Game Profiles, you can use Add Game from the Inner Space menu and point it at wow.exe, and put "-d3d11" with no quotes in the Parameters box, then change each Character to use this new Game Profile.

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt replies. I have pretty much tried everything as suggested already in my process of elimination trying to resolve this problem, that is being forced into DirectX 9.

On my Innerspace configuration console section, I originally had 1 profile only for World of Warcraft, this had no direct x parameter option specified. So as I understand should adhere to the in game settings. Also when I run the game profile from the innerspace menu (right click system tray icon) the game runs in DirectX 11 as per my non-isboxer client settings. I also actually tried creating a second profile for wow which included the -d3d11 parameter option but this still reverted.

The last part of Mirai's post interested me... and confused me at the same time. I only have one dedicated gpu (the radeon hd7980) but the i5 chip includes the HD4000 gpu, which as I understand should be disabled when a dedicated gpu in installed. Now I am going to again assume (awful thing to do) that windows is using the radeon as primary as I have not changed anything anywhere. But I wonder if this could be causing a problem, I will check my bios settings and let you know.

Also a quick question, in the innerspace configuration 'manager' for the game, there is the OpenGL, Direct3D8, Direct3D9 options (which as I type this I realise that these are 'legacy' options for old gfx accelerator cards circa voodoo3 era) I wondered if these would have an impact but now I suspect not.

Thanks again for the replies, I may have to resign myself again to running in DirectX9 if I cant track the issue down and i want to use dxnothing windows. I appreciate that at this moment in time that I may be the only person having this specific issue, and may never get resolved.

Kt

WOW... OMG.... such a simple fix...

So it seems that Mirai may have be barking up the correct tree... (Or I have imaged ever having an issue). So basically, I have a i5 3570k which includes the hd4000 integrated driver. I am using a ASUS P8Z77-V mobo, within the Bios there is a section under the advanced settings determine what gpu is used. This was set as auto when I checked my settings, changed this to use PCIE, affectively disabling the HD4000 gpu.

So once booted back up, tested assigned a windows layout 5 stacked based on the wizard, BOOOM. DirectX 11. I did see a few posts while searching these forums that mention issues with Optimus, but nothing that I can remember specifically regarding wow or directx. But i suspect that this is the same root issue.

Such a simple fix and something that I would have never even thought about. Even tested with reduced size windows (just randomly arranged and dragged) and works fine. Perfect.

Thank you once again.