How to fix "A D3D11-compatible GPU (Feature Level 11.0, Shader Model 5.0) is required to run the engine"

Question

To start i have a D3D11 compatible GPU (GTX 1660), i am up to date on windows 10 20H2, i have the latest nvidia driver installed, i have the all the c++ redistributables downloaded on my pc and the dx12 runtime installed aswell.

And i am still getting this "A D3D11-compatible GPU (Feature Level 11.0, Shader Model 5.0) " error on a game. Whats even weirder is that it lets me load up the game with no issue every other day. 2 days ago i couldnt load up the game, yesterday i could launch the game with no problem and today i couldnt load up the game.

I must have corrupt files or something but im not 100% sure.

Answer 1

I was using custom nvidia drivers

I was installing the nvidia drivers using "NVCleaninstall" which lets you customize the NVIDIA GeForce Driver package by removing components that you don't 'need'. One of these components that got removed must have had an impact on why i was experencing d3d11 errors because when i reinstalled the lastest nvidia driver properly i didnt get the d3d11 error.