How to fix Dirt 2’s failure to launch

Dirt 2 is a fun rally racing game, when it works. It was also the first major DirectX 11 release. Unfortunately, a lot of PC gamers are having problems with it. Namely, the game will fail to launch. You’ll get the Windows spinning ring, then nothing. The issue seems to be the most common if you purchased it through Steam, or are running Windows 7.

There’s an easy, partial fix you can do to get Dirt 2 running again. First of all, make sure you have the latest video drivers installed, which you can get from AMD and nVidia. Next open up your Steam folder. Open up Steamapps, then open Common, and open Dirt 2. Right click dirt2.exe and select “Run as Administrator”.

The game should now load up. Unfortunately, it will be stuck in windowed mode. I can’t find a way to correct that. At least it makes the game playable. If you get any weird graphics issues, just restart the game. You’ll have to do this process each time. I recommend creating a desktop shortcut so it’s easy to find.

I’m not exactly sure what causes the problem. It’s unfortunate that Codemasters hasn’t found a way to correct the issue. Hopefully they will soon.