dxgi.dll is missing or crashes a game: what the file is and how to fix it

Each file below is Microsoft's own dxgi.dll for one Windows release, fetched from Microsoft's own server and checked against Winbindex, the index of the files in Windows images and updates. Pick your Windows version (Settings, System, About shows it) and the build: 64-bit for System32, 32-bit for SysWOW64. The repair steps above are still the better fix, because Windows protects these folders and keeps its copy updated. Use a file here to compare it with a copy you have, or when System File Checker and DISM cannot repair the file.

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The wording tells you which problem you have. These are the texts Windows and games show, as written, with the file name filled in.

dxgi.dll is DirectX Graphics Infrastructure. It sits between Direct3D and the graphics driver: it lists the graphics adapters and the monitors connected to them, creates the swap chain that holds the frames a game draws, presents each finished frame to the screen, and switches between windowed and full screen modes. Direct3D 10, 11 and 12 all go through it, and so does the Desktop Window Manager that draws the Windows desktop. When the card or the driver fails, dxgi.dll is where the game finds out, which is why it shows up in so many crash reports. What Windows reports for the genuine file:

On 64-bit Windows, System32 holds the 64-bit file and SysWOW64 the 32-bit one; the folder names are historical. When a game starts, Windows looks for dxgi.dll in the game's own folder first, which is exactly what graphics injectors rely on: a file with this name next to the game's .exe is loaded instead of the Windows copy. The genuine file describes itself as DirectX Graphics Infrastructure (Properties, Details, File description) and is about 1 MB: in the Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 builds the 64-bit file is 1,316,248 bytes and the 32-bit one 1,090,024 bytes, in Windows 10 22H2 the 64-bit file is 1,013,816 bytes. A mod's copy usually shows another description, another size, and no Microsoft signature.

Every Windows release has its own build of dxgi.dll, updated together with Windows. Winbindex lists 300 distinct Microsoft builds; the table shows the newest one indexed for each release and the update that delivered it.

Public DLL catalogues have collected 21 copies of dxgi.dll uploaded from PCs, from version 6.0.6000.16386 to 10.0.19041.1. Many come from older Windows releases. The table lists each with its checksums, so you can tell which one you have.

None of these replaces the file your Windows ships: the newest build indexed for Windows is 10.0.28000.2952, and each release keeps its own. If the check on this page finds your file in this list, it is most likely an older Microsoft build that was copied somewhere by hand. Confirm the Microsoft signature, remove the copy from the game folder, and let Windows use its own.

Copies uploaded by users to a public DLL catalogue, read on 17 October 2026. We list their checksums so you can identify a file; we do not offer them for download and we did not verify each one against Microsoft's signature.