Warbands DirectX SDK Rendering Error

Hi everyone, I've never posted here but I've been playing M&B and Warbands for years now.  I hope someone can help me with my little problem, so I can play again! So, I recently tried to reinstall Warbands onto my laptop after getting the RAM replaced, and now Warbands won't boot up.  It does the loading screen, but as soon as the TaleWorlds logo goes away the game crashes and I get the following error message:

Warning: Nothing will be rendered.
The reference rendering device was selected, but your computer only has a reduced-functionality rendering device installed.  Install the DirectX SDK to get the full reference device.

Has anybody seen this before, or know how to go about fixing it?  I am not very computer savvy, so I thought I'd seek help instead of trying to do it myself, and Google didn't seem to know anything about it.  I have a Dell XPS M1530 and before my old memory crashed, Warbands ran completely fine (except a little laggy in giant battles).

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.  You can try the following:
Switch Warband to DirectX 7 mode.  You can do this by pressing configure in the launcher, clicking on video, then the dropdown box labeled directX 9.  Select the DirectX 7 option, then okay, and you're ready to play.

If that doesn't work, or you want DirectX 9:
Download the latest version of Warband.  If you already have it, redownload it anyway just to be sure it's not an installation issue.  If you have Warband through Steam, follow these instructions to validate your game files instead.

If that doesn't work:
Download the latest Direct X 9 runtime libraries (not the SDK).

If that doesn't work:
Download the latest drivers for your video card (NVIDIA) (ATI/AMD).

If that doesn't work:
Pray.

If you do get it working, be sure to say what did the trick so that others can solve this problem for themselves.

One month later and I finally got around to really trying to fix this problem.  What worked for me was updating the latest drivers for my video card.  First I reformatted my computer entirely, it still wouldn't work, but after I updated the drivers it started working.

Thanks for the help, I much appreciate it and hopefully this will also be an easy fix for anyone else with this problem!

Sorry for replying in an old thread, but I had the same issue.
It seems that the most common fix is to update the video card as that resolved my issue as well. 
Tried all others first, without success.

i had the same problem. im downloading the video things, see if that worked. The way it was caused was i downloaded the scandavian mod and a day later it didnt work. Im PRAYING thins works.

Sorry im editing this. My driver IS up to date but it still wont work. It doesnt tell me what the problem is or anything.

my warband isnt working because if i start warband it says ''Generic application error. Enable
                                                                                          debug output to the reference rasterizer
                                                                                            a software device that implements the entire
                                                                                          Direct3D feature set, but runs very slowly.''
and then it stops working.....please help me

Today I started having this problem too. I've played the game earlier today without any problem, but now when I started computer again and tried playing, the problems started. I have not changed anything on my computer between those two times I've played it.

My problem was solved by changing the screen resolution I played it in 1920x1080 and I was not walking and now I play in less resolution and it works perfect

Sorry to revive this topic yet again but it was one of the first things to pop up on google without even writing Mount&Blade. The issue for me was updating the graphics drivers, but doing so from the computer itself wasn't helping for some reason (Windows key+R->devmgmt.msc->Display Adapters->Right Click on the card and "Update Driver Software"). I found a random YT vid which recommended DriverMax (https://www.drivermax.com/download.htm) <-says inactive link but it works, which solved the problem immediately. My graphics card is the Standard VGA (plz don't judge me, getting new one this Black Friday)

Hope anyone that reads this thread fixes this issue!