Failed to initialise error directly after launch

Hi all,

I now have this Problem, error occurs directly after the Steam "Path of Exile is being started" window. Path of Exile doesnt start at all it seems. I have played PoE fine on this Computer a few weeks ago.

So far i have tried (with no changes to the problem):
- Checking local files
- Changing locale from DE to EN, removing DE, reinstalling DE like discribed in the forum, also tried several times during the process when EN was active
- installed latest catalyst "omega" driver
- installed directx from the poe directory
- reinstallel PoE
- tried a different account on same computer
- tried a usb keyboard instead of ps2

System is Win8.1 x64, AMD HD7870, Corei5

Please Help!

THANKS :-)

I have this error too.
I'm not so sure the issue is related to sound card drivers and other stuff, people are speculating, in various Forum threads.
I'm under the impression it has to do with the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable packages used for the game, Vs the Microsoft Visual C++ compilers version used in various sound and graphics card drivers.
Issue hapenned to me after I made upgrade to all latest Microsoft Visual C++ components and removed the old versions I kept side by side.
Re-installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 to 2012, prior SP1 versions, alongside with the new ones, seem to fix the problem.
We could use an official verification from the support team on this, because it is a long-tems unresolved issue, for many players.
"Failed to initialise", usually means the game could not create a DirectX access interface for the selected gfx or sound device.