What version of the DirectX SDK do you have? Can you give us a screenshot of your dxdiag window? What version of Windows do you have? What graphics card do you have? Do you have the latest drivers?

It sounds like you don't have a D3D9 compatible video card, or you're running through remote desktop, virtual machine or something similar that would prevent D3D9 from being used.

You can get to hexadecimal view in Visual Studio by right clicking in the watch window in the debugger and selecting "Hexadecimal Display".

I am using Windows 7 Starter. I have a compatible graphics card because up until now it has always worked i have tried updating the drivers earlier today and it said they are up-to date. how do I tell if I am running remote desktop mode and how do i disable it ?

If you're not logging in remotely, you're not using remote desktop.

Can we get a screenshot of your dxdiag window? Something sounds very wrong with your setup.

You could also try doing a system restore to roll back to a time when other 3D games worked.

i have thought about that but i cant boot ubuntu from my usb stick. Can you help me with this ?

What does Ubuntu have to do with anything?

i just like it and i want to use it

You can't use it with Direct3D. Direct3D is Windows-only.

I'm beginning to strongly suspect that this is just a troll thread. In which case it's going to get locked and the OP is going to get warned.

how is it a troll thread

1. In several posts you've been asked one or more questions which you either don't answer at all, or answer a single one of in a single sentence. Outstanding questions asked which you've not answered are so far:
"Presumably CreateDevice() is failing - is that what your debugger tells you (If you put a breakpoint in the if(FAILED(hRet)) block, is it hit)?"
"What to the debug Direct3D runtimes tell you (Start menu -> DirectX SDK -> Tools -> DirectX Control Panel -> Direct3D9 tab, select "Use Debug Version of Direct3D 9")?"
"What are the values of all those settings? Are you sure you've chosen settings that your graphics card supports?"
"Do you get any debug output at all? And any D3D output at all?"
"Also, what is the value of hRet when CreateDevice() fails (Look at it in the debugger, preferably in hexadecimal view)?"
"Really? I've never seen CreateDevice() return that, it should be something like D3DERR_INVALIDCALL or D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE."
"Can you give us a screenshot of your dxdiag window?"
"What graphics card do you have?"

2. For someone who's doing a DirectX programming course, you don't seem to know anything about computers (E.g. what Remote Desktop is)

3. You change the subject to something unrelated and obviously incompatible with DirectX before the original issue has been addressed, as if you've become bored with it.


If it's not a troll thread, then I suggest sticking to the original topic, and trying to answer peoples questions as fully as possible.

yes because i didn't know how to answer most of them which is why i was asking so many questions.