have you tried starting it down vs. starting it up?

you're probably better off anyway

For people who have dx10.1 graphic card, this may be solve the problem of witcher 3.
I think some guys runs some dx11 games with dx 10 and 10.1.

In a forum of runnig Watchs Dogs a guy said:

Follow these steps to run Watch Dogs on DirectX 10:

Go to start menu and type "dxcpl.exe"
In Direct X Properties, under the scope tab open "Edit List"
Then go to C:\Program Files(x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher and add the exe files
Next go to C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Watch_Dogs\bin and add "watch_dogs.exe" file. These are the default locations, your file path may vary depending on the location of the directory you used for installation of Watch Dogs.
Close this list box now
Open "Feature Level Limit" at the bottom of the main window and select "11_1"
Check "Force WARP"
Click Apply and run Watch Dogs

I dont try this with witcher 3, because im travelling.

Attention: I dont now if this type of chances will burn the graphic card. The save solution is take a new one with dx 11.

Yes this worked for me i really thank you for this!!!

Glad you're actually able to play the game! While it seems weird to have a DirectX 11 system, that just basically means you have DirectX 11 installed on your machine; however, it is backward compatible (basically meaning if you have a DirectX 10 video card, your video card won't stop working). What this does mean is that there are several features of DirectX 11 installed on your system that your older video card cannot take advantage of.

I was in the same boat as you were, I thought I had powerful enough gear to run The Witcher 3 too, but after a slightly humbling experience with the game crashing on me and verifying what version of DirectX my graphics card could support (through some well crafted Google searches), I went from thinking my graphics were the bomb to feeling like a monkey with sticks.

It set me back a bit of coin, but I think that investing in the new graphics card was worth it --not just for the Witcher 3 but for any other newer games they decide to throw at it. :)
Wow, that is really cool to know --however, I ended up buying a new graphics card anyhow. I'm pretty sure it would have been painful to play with my older video hardware.

This one worked for me and seemed to solve all problems. Works well.

Narrowed something down. Getting Witcher 3 to run was not on account of the old graphics driver, but switching back the driver which must have reset the processor setting.

I switched back to my IntelHD5500 and magically the game worked. Poor FPS and image tearing all over the place, but the game launches and is 'playable'.

I don't understand when I try to launch it with the 4GB GTX 850M the game won't boot at all, that's the dedicated graphics card which should have no trouble running it as I've seen with some YouTube examples.

FIX or The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt game fails to start

Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 4
https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/download/details.aspx?id=30679
The Visual C++ Redistributable Packages install runtime components that are required to run C++ applications built with Visual Studio 2012.

ERROR "the programm can` t start, because of the file VCOMP110.dll" is missing on this Computer

please install vcredist_x64

located in the subfolder "_CommonRedist" of the game
Example C:\Program Files\The Witcher 3\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\__redist\MSVC2012_x64
or get it from the downloadlink above

had also this problem - the game just wouldn´t start from the GOG Galaxy Client 1.0.2.970 anymore

it comes in handy to know the path of your installationfolder for The Witcher® 3 - Wild Hunt / this enables you to start the Witcher3.exe manualy, located inside of the subfolder x64
Example C:\Program Files\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt\bin\x64
I had altered/changed the installationpath within the Settings (Settings / little grey gearwheel-icon in the GOG Galaxy Client) under the Category Folders before startig the installation :
Install game to:
C:\Program Files
box checked (ticked) in front of Manage all folders manually
Download games to: C:\GOG Games\Downloads
Download extras to: C:\GOG Games\Extras

Only starting Witcher3.exe manualy results/offers in the following errormessage:
the programm can` t start, because of the file VCOMP110.dll is missing on this Computer
While trying to start the game with/within the GOG Galaxy Client this errormessage is not shown, the game will just not start - without any hint/feedback of the reason.

It looks like that even a fresh second and also any additional attempts to do a fresh installation of the game [settings used here: delete all savegames and folders] won´t execute the MSVC2012_x64.exe inside of the folder __redis automaticly [to fix the issue/add the missing file(s)]

It would be more than just useful if the developers of The Witcher® 3 - Wild Hunt would add/integrate an option (tickbox) for executing MSVC2012_x64.exe (installing) during the installationsprocess of the game anytime the game gets installed - certainly with the WARNING that the game won`t run without the installed runtime components from Visual C++ Redistributable Packages, wich are required to run C++-Applications developed with Visual Studio 2012.

Thank you, I will try that next.

Well, I've uninstalled all Microsoft C++ packages, and reinstalled the newest. No overall change. I've even changed installing the game with a different installer package.

Still nothing but a black screen. I really suspect that game somehow doesn't know how to handle the alternate video card properly since the memory caps at 1GB without explanation.

If anyone knows a general solution to this on laptops, I'm open to ideas.

For me i had Visual C++ 2013 x64 installed but not x86 when i installed Visual C++ 2013 x86 i then ran The Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt and it started up with no problems i am running Windows 10 Pro Preview Build 10130 ASRock 990FX Extreme 9 motherboard AMD FX Vishera 9590 @4.7GHZ and 5GHZ turbo 16GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum 2400Mhz Desktop Ram Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4GB GDDR5 VRam 1300 watt EVGA PSU 128GB SSD Crucial (upgrading to a Samsung 580EVO 500GB SSD) Swiftech H240 X Liquid CPU Cooler

Need some help :( After downloading Crossbows&Nilfgaardian armor DLC my game stopped working. When I click play in Galaxy (or run .exe directly, bypassing gog galaxy) I get Witcher 3 window filled with black color and it shuts down after ~1 second. No error message. After about 2 more seconds play button in galaxy turns green again - as if game started and closed itself ultra fast. It all happened after downloading those two DLCs - before that everything worked good on 1.04.

Using Windows 8.1, GeForce 750Ti, drivers up to date. Switching between last and one before last drivers makes no difference.

Well, two weeks later, I finally got my black screen issue resolved, and unfortunately wasn't as simple as all the other problems people encountered here.

I tried Deus EX HR and ran into the same issue which is of course 3+ years old and shouldn't be having an issue, so I started looking into an issue with my computer itself. Some Google results suggested an OS issue.

So for any who have a pre-installed OS, results may vary. I have an HP Envy 15 with Win 7 Pro (x64). I had to reinstall Windows 7 completely, didn't even try the recover option. Once I did, and got the drivers up to date, the game ran on the dedicated card, no problem.

So for reasons, software, hardware unknown, some factory installed os problems can interfere.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone provided. :)

Best thing to do would describe the problem, so others can help troubleshoot.
Like: What changed since the time it stopped working? (New patch, certain game event, setting change) What is causing it to not work?

Same problem, w 10130, after crash cant install msvcp110dll and else drivers