That’s just it: the cfg file should be created by the time the video init happens, so if it’s not getting that far, it’s probably not the video driver that’s causing the issue. Nevertheless, you can make a text file named “retroarch.cfg” and put this line in:
video_driver = "whatever"
Try replacing whatever with gdi, d3d9 or d3d11.
Worked like a charm! I did exactly what you said. I created a new text file in the Retroarch directory, renamed it to “retroarch.cfg” and entered the following line:
video_driver = “D3D11”
Saved it and it started up. It also immediately wrote a new retroarch.cfg that contains all the options I’m used to seeing.
Continuing the discussion from Retroarch keeps crashing on windows 7 upon startup:
hi guys. i have tried all the options suggested here and still not working. i did have an older version that worked but i cant remember the version since i had to do a re-format if my pc… does anyone know of a stable version that actually works without this problem. i have tried all the available downloads on the liberto site still ng. any suggestions? windows 7 32bit sp1 and dx 11 thanks
I have Windows 7 32-bit service pack 1 also. (Yes, July 2020, still got it, and I finally got it to work yesterday and for the first time got a game running in RetroArch!) Changing the video driver to “gdi” in a new retroarch.cfg text file did work for me. None of the “d3d” options worked for me. I also changed the menu to rgui (menu_driver = “rgui”).
(Side note: To navigate the menu system, if “z” and “x” don’t work reliably, use enter to accept and backspace to go back.)
Later on I found out that the video driver “gl1” works for me also, and with “gl1”, all the four menu driver options work fine. (Since I’m on a low-end machine, the “xmb” menu driver is slow, but it doesn’t crash.) The “gl” video driver makes me crash, however.
So if anything, if you still happen to be on a Windows 7 machine, try either the “gdi” or “gl1” video drivers with the “rgui” menu driver. If you want to experiment with other video drivers after you got it to work the first time, then you’ll have to come back to your config file if it crashes. (That’s just what I learned along the process. 
)
d3d9 video driver and rgui menu driver works best on my old crap Intel Atom netbook, even some cg shaders work that way. Opengl driver with glui menu starts but then hangs if i load a rom (any rom), also hangs when quit. If i use retroarch debug exe, opengl works with ozone interface but cannot use any shader.