UEFN Crashes on Launch — Feature Level 5 Not Detected Despite RTX 2080 SUPER

General Issues and Bug Reporting
, , ,
1

Summary

UEFN fails to launch on my system, showing the error:

“A Feature Level 5 video card is required to run the editor. AvailableFeatureLevel = ES3_1, ShaderPlatform = PCD3D_ES31”

I’m using an RTX 2080 SUPER with full support for DirectX 12 / Shader Model 6.6 / Feature Level 12_1.
All drivers and DirectX runtimes are current.

Please select what you are reporting on:

Unreal Editor for Fortnite

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Stability

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Launch UEFN from Epic Games Launcher
  2. Observe crash or error: “A Feature Level 5 video card is required to run the editor. AvailableFeatureLevel = ES3_1, ShaderPlatform = PCD3D_ES31”

Expected Result

UEFN should launch normally using DirectX 12.

Observed Result

UEFN crashes before launch. This prevents use of the editor entirely.

Platform(s)

Windows 10 Pro (Build 19042)
RTX 2080 SUPER (Driver 32.0.15.8088)
DirectX 12, Feature Levels: 12_1, 12_0, 11_1 (confirmed via dxdiag)
WDDM 2.7

2

Experiencing the same issue. It started after the new update as well

3

Same issue for me with the update

4

FORT-949982 has been created and its status is ‘Unconfirmed’. This is now in a queue to be reproduced and confirmed.

5

Hello! Would you be able to share your logs with us so we can investigate?

Instructions:

6

cef3-backup-2025.08.04-18.23.58.zip (1.6 MB)

1 Like
7

Hello, my logs are 125mb and max on here is 30mb. I can maybe upload them on google drive and send a link?

8
1 Like
9

Hello - 1st time poster lurking the forums to find my exact issue which brings me here; also having the same error and message after update.

2 Likes
10

Seeing this on two different PCs as well

11

Logs.zip (2.2 MB)

1 Like
12

I get this as well, but I’m using a legacy video card so there will be no more updates for it.
Was about to face not being able to map for a while, but remembered

use -d3d11 in the epic game launcher as a command line argument to force the editor to use DX11 mode

It runs, keep us going until the next driver update or saving up for a new graphics card

3 Likes
13

image (1)
image (1)646×552 11 KB

I have found a solution thanks to a member in the community.

  • Go into the epic games launcher
  • Click on the 3 dots for UEFN > manage
  • turn on ‘Launch Options’
  • and type in -d3d11
  • then launch UEFN

It should work from there.

7 Likes
14

Hello,

Old integrated GPUs cannot run the editor in DX12. They used to automatically fall back to DX11, but unfortunately we broke this behavior when we introduced DX12 performance mode in the client. We will fix the problem ASAP, but in the mean time the solution is indeed to run with the -d3d11 command line argument, to force the editor to start in DX11.

However, I’m not sure what’s wrong in Abu_Daxi’s case. A 2080 on Windows 10 20H2 should be able to run DX12 SM6, but the engine says this:

DirectX Agility SDK runtime not found

That means it cannot load D3D12Core.dll from INSTALL_DIR\FortniteGame\Binaries\Win64\D3D12. Can you please make sure this DLL is present?

1 Like
15

That makes sense, thanks for the info, so I’ve been running DX11 mode all along anyway he he

16

same with me

17

image
image716×579 41.8 KB

18

i did this and it works!

image
image646×552 23.1 KB

3 Likes
19

Thank you - this has worked for now!

I’ve started looking into eGPUs - I hope this doesn’t cause an issue with the MSI RTX 2070 SUPER…

Edit - I’m encountering a “Project validation failed” message after trying to test the map; I’ve validated files under the manage section. Is this a separate issue?

1 Like
20

hi @MeLo_2011_18 ,

Possibly try with the
Validation and Fix-Up Tool in Unreal Editor for Fortnite | Fortnite Documentation | Epic Developer Community

1 Like