im trying to play warcraft 3 and whenever i try to start
it up, i get an error message. It says; "Warcraft III was
unable to initialize DirectX. Please insure you have
DirectX 8.1 or newer installed and that your display
drivers are current. DirectX may be found on your
Warcraft III install CD under Options."
I have DirectX 9.0c installed. I think it's my display
driver. I run on Windows 2000 and all files were
downloaded from the instalation CD.
I checked my display driver and it said that i have an ATI
Technologies Inc. 3D RAGE IIC AGP driver and the
version is 5.00.2174.1. I was wondering...how can i fix
it so that Warcraft III can run. Thank you

Unfortunately, your video card is specifically listed as "not supported" by
Blizzard (the publisher of the game.)

Look here: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mwr0555p

Sorry You will need to upgrade your video card to play the game.

You can try these steps which sometimes helps people who get that error
message, but I doubt it will help you due to the hardware you are running.

--Disable then re-enable Direct 3D:
1.. Click Start
2.. Click Run
3.. Type dxdiag and push Enter
4.. Select the Display tab
5.. Click the Disable button next to Direct3D Acceleration
6.. Click the Enable button next to Direct3D Acceleration and try the game
again
--


--
Colin Nash
Microsoft MVP
Windows Printing/Imaging/Hardware


"zeppelin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:763d01c4766d$beb1c250$(E-Mail Removed)...
> im trying to play warcraft 3 and whenever i try to start
> it up, i get an error message. It says; "Warcraft III was
> unable to initialize DirectX. Please insure you have
> DirectX 8.1 or newer installed and that your display
> drivers are current. DirectX may be found on your
> Warcraft III install CD under Options."
> I have DirectX 9.0c installed. I think it's my display
> driver. I run on Windows 2000 and all files were
> downloaded from the instalation CD.
> I checked my display driver and it said that i have an ATI
> Technologies Inc. 3D RAGE IIC AGP driver and the
> version is 5.00.2174.1. I was wondering...how can i fix
> it so that Warcraft III can run. Thank you
>

[jamescameron]

First of all,
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ROLLBACK OR UNINSTALL YOUR DIRECTX.
IT JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.
Reverting back to previous versions of DirectX, I assure you,
will not solve the problem
but will just mess up your Operating System.

Secondly,
BEFORE RESORTING TO GIVING UP YOUR CURRENT GRAPHIC CARDS
AND BUYING NEW ONES,
try this possible solution first.

THE ONLY REASON WHY THE ERROR MESSAGE
"..Unable to intialize DirectX..."
APPEARS IN WARCRAFT IS THAT
DIRECT3D ACCELERATION IS DISABLED
(even if your graphics card is direct3d-capable)
or IS JUST SIMPLY NOT SUPPORTED BY YOUR GRAPHICS CARD.

To know if it's disabled,
type dxdiag in the run command.
Go to Display tab.
Check DirectDraw and Direct3d acceleration.
Status of these two must be "Enabled" and is clickable.
If it's not, then your Direct3d is indeed disabled,
which prohibits warcraft from running.

SO THE QUESTION NOW IS, HOW DO YOU ENABLE DIRECT3D? Simple.
Just go to Display Properties (from the Control Panel),
then click Settings tab,
and then click Advanced button.
Look for the tab where "Hardware acceleration" is present
(in most cases, it's in the Troubleshoot tab).
Drag the indicator to Full.
Click Apply and OK.

Just to be safe, restart your PC again.
Run Warcraft.

[Noel Kearns]

Ive got the same problem as zeppelin,and I did what jamescameron advised but my Warcraft 3 still doesnt work.Its most probably because I have NO video card(or graphics card.)... But the funny thing is,it only works 'sometimes' and sometimes it doesnt!When it doesnt work I try restarting my pc a few times,and after about 3 or 4 tries,it ll work.But recently it hasnt been working at all...So if anyone can tell me why it only works at certain times that would help.Thanks