I believe that this is an indication that something has gone wrong with your video driver install or configuration somehow.

The name of this error code is "D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE" - I've done some searches on "GetDeviceCaps D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE" and I've seen some mention of this error related to various games.

One thing to try is go to Start / Run and run "dxdiag.exe". There should be "Display 1" and "Display 2" tabs in there, each of which has a "Test Direct3D" button on it - give those a try and see if the tests are successful or not.

I've also seen one place where one person was able to fix their configuration by using dxdiag.exe, and pushing the "Disable" button next to Direct3D Acceleration in that same tab, then exiting dxdiag.exe, then starting dxdiag.exe and re-enabling it. Apparently this may fix some problem in the driver configuration, so that is worth a try.

The other thing that you might try is updating to the newest version of your card's video driver.

Please let me know if any of these solves your problem.

- Michael

I did a little more research into the laptop video card and come to discover that the video card is incapable of using Direct3D. The option is greyed out in the dxdiag.exe dialog box. The software looks great, but it looks like I'm out of luck. I'll try it on my home machine. Thanks for all the help.

It's an nVidia Quadro FX? It is supposed to support Direct3D... Every model listed here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html mentions DirectX 9 support.

Unless you found out you have some different video card, you probably have some installation problem with your video drivers. If something has gone wrong with the drivers install, it can make Windows/DirectX think that you have no hardware video acceleration. Updating to the newer drivers may clear it up.

- Michael

Michael, I started to redo your tutorial on the Japanese bath, I clicked on MOI, and the program opened up with this message:Unable to create direct 3d9 device. Its never done it before! I enclose error messages from dxdiag.exe and MOI error.log.
Thanks
John

Hi John, well when dxdiag.exe shows an error in its tests, it definitely means that something is messed up with DirectX.

Maybe it has crashed or something, try doing a shutdown and restart of windows and see if it works ok after that.

- Michael

Michael,
This nVidia is a 350M from Dell. It says that it should support Direct3D, but the only features revolve around DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectMusic and DirectPlay. All of the options for DirectX are greyed out. I've installed the latest drivers and gone through the troubleshooting tools. It says that everything is fine, but no luck with the DirectX options. I'll keep on trying and get back to you when all is right with the world.

Ricardo - keeping the faith

Hi Ricardo, sorry it's still not working for you. That card is definitely supposed to support Direct3D, in fact it should be a pretty good card to run it.

But failures in dxdiag.exe definitely mean something is messed up on your system...

Maybe it is possible that something is messed up in DirectX itself rather than in the video driver... If that is the case it is possible that installing the new version of DirectX will tune it up: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en

- Michael

Michael,
I've tried it all. I'll call Dell and see if there is some switch or hardware issue with the card that I have. Maybe we saved a whole 10 bucks on IT's budget with the configuration we have. I'll keep watching the boards to find the solution or post it when I have one.

Ricardo