Chaser World Studio 2000 on Modern Windows
On most modern PCs the World Studio 2000 editor crashes the moment you start it, or opens and disappears instantly. This guide fixes that in about five minutes. No files are modified — you only add a few. WHAT YOU NEED:
INSTALL THE EDITOR: Download both files and run them in this order:
You need both. The update is a patch: it upgrades the editor itself and adds additional assets. When either installer asks where to install, point it at your Chaser folder — the one containing Chaser.exe. The suggested default is often wrong, especially for the Steam
version. Use the same folder for both installers.
When you're done, WorldStudio2000.exe sits next to Chaser.exe.
SET UP DGVOODOO2: 1. Open your Chaser folder This is the folder containing Chaser.exe and WorldStudio2000.exe. On Steam:
right-click Chaser → Manage → Browse local files. It's usually:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Chaser2. Download dgVoodoo2 Go to the releases page: https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2/releases Open the newest release and download the main archive under Assets — named like dgVoodoo2_87_5.zip (version 2.87.5 at the time of
writing). Any 2.8x version works.
3. Unblock and extract it Right-click the downloaded .zip → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then extract it anywhere. 4. Copy these files into the Chaser folder
Take the DLLs from MS\x86 — the 32-bit ones. The x64 and arm64 folders will not
work. Ignore the 3Dfx folder entirely.
Do not copy D3D8.dll or D3D9.dll into this folder. Chaser itself uses Direct3D 8,
and those files would wrap the game too. DDraw.dll is safe, because the game doesn't use
DirectDraw — only the editor does.
5. Edit dgVoodoo.conf Open dgVoodoo.conf (the copy now in your Chaser folder) in Notepad. Find the line under
the [DirectXExt] section and change it to true:
MSD3DDeviceNames = trueThis step is not optional. The editor only accepts graphics devices named exactly "Direct3D HAL" or "Direct3D T&L HAL". dgVoodoo2 normally calls its devices "dgVoodoo HAL" and "dgVoodoo TnL HAL", and when the editor doesn't find a name it recognises it closes immediately without any error message. This setting restores the original names. While you're in there, you can also turn off dgVoodoo2's corner logo, under [DirectX]:
dgVoodooWatermark = falseSave the file. 6. Start the editor Run WorldStudio2000.exe. It should open with all four viewports working, and you can
maximize it on any monitor.
TROUBLESHOOTING: The editor opens and closes instantly, with no error. It found no graphics device it recognises. Check that MSD3DDeviceNames = true is set in
the dgVoodoo.conf that sits in the Chaser folder, and that DDraw.dll and
D3DImm.dll are in that same folder.
It still crashes right away. The wrapper isn't being loaded. Make sure the DLLs came from MS\x86 (not x64), that
they're beside WorldStudio2000.exe, and that you unblocked the .zip before extracting.
You can confirm it's the old problem in Event Viewer: the crash names
WorldStudio2000.exe with exception 0xc0000005 at offset 0x32b3f.
It opens, but the right-hand viewports stay blank white. You're running without the wrapper in place. Recheck steps 4 and 5. Changes in the settings UI do nothing. dgVoodooCpl.exe edits whichever dgVoodoo.conf is next to it — run the copy inside your
Chaser folder, not the one in your Downloads folder.
NOTES:
WHY IT BREAKS: World Studio 2000 is from 2003 and uses Direct3D 7. It makes its 3D drawing surface as large as your desktop, but current graphics drivers refuse to create a Direct3D 7 device on any surface wider or taller than 2048 pixels. The editor never checks whether that worked, so it uses a device that doesn't exist and crashes. Any desktop wider than 2048 pixels triggers it — that's every 1440p and 4K monitor, and also 1080p if you use Windows display scaling. (At 125% scaling a 5120x1440 monitor looks like 4096x1152 to the editor.) The fix is dgVoodoo2, a free wrapper that replaces DirectDraw/Direct3D 7 with a modern implementation that has no such limit. Once the editor is running, see the WorldStudio Tutorial to build your first map. -If you need any help please feel free to ask for it in our CBOX. |