HiDef is one of the 2 profiles available for developing games in XNA. But…this profile requires a direct3d/D3D compatible video card. It apparently checks for DirectX10 compatibility.
XNA will check this before compiling/running the project and will throw an error if the video card doesn’t meet the requirements

Error thrown whenever a HiDef profile is used with an incompatible video card

Error thrown whenever a HiDef profile is used with an incompatible video card

How to solve this ?

The solution is this library fbDeprofiler.dll - or another video card. (both work :D).

fbDeprofiler is a small application which allows us to bypass the profile checking. So, even if the video card doesn’t accept direct3d/D3D, the game will run, but unexpected errors may appear anytime - this is not an official fix.

Adding fbDeprofiler to your project

1. You can download it from here: fbDeprofiler

2. After downloading, unrar the file and copy fbDeprofiler.dll in the directory where the game’s source code is found.

3. Open your project in Visual Studio, go to Solution Explorer, right click on the project’s name -> Add Reference -> Browse and select fbDeprofiler.dll.

4. Finally, add in the game’s constructor (public Game1()) the following line:

1

fbDeprofiler.DeProfiler.Run();

Now your game will run in Hidef profile on any computer with any video card so you don’t have to worry anymore about the requirements.

Update (for Steam users):

I noticed this thread gets a lot of attention from SteamPowered forums. If you get this error it means your video card doesn’t meet the requirements for HiDef profile - check for DirectX10 compatibility. Not really a problem with the game, it’s just the framework that asks for special stuff.