The first version of DirectX was released in 1995. The final revision of DirectX 8.1 was released in 2002. Windows games developed during this period will often have minor to severe graphics issues if you try to run them on newer versions of Windows.

ZanZarah, which uses DirectX 8.1, is one such game.

Fortunately, a developer named "Dege" has been working on a freeware utility called dgVoodoo for the last several years. Basically, dgVoodoo translates these older DirectX games so that they use DirectX version 10 instead, which is compatible with all modern Windows operating systems.

The specifics of how it works are beyond my knowledge, but you can learn about the technical details from the readme file if you are interested. In my experience, dgVoodoo has worked flawlessly on around 75% of old DirectX games that I have tried it with.

dgVoodoo will also work for games that use 3Dfx Glide rather than DirectX for 3D acceleration, as an alternative to the more well-known nGlide wrapper. But since ZanZarah only uses DirectX, that's not a concern in this case.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are an Nvidia user and have made the changes suggested by Daedalic in their pinned topic on the ZanZarah discussion board, make sure you undo those changes before taking these steps (reset the Maximum pre-rendered frames or Low-latency mode for zanthp.exe to the default setting). Otherwise you will have problems with animations and stamina not recharging during battles.

If you are still having problems with the battles even after undoing the Daedalic Nvidia fix, you should also try forcing on vsync for zanzarah.exe in your GPU control panel.

Thanks to Steam users Xzimnut and Eri Ninamori for identifying those solutions.


From the dgVoodoo[dege.freeweb.hu] website, download the latest version of dgVoodoo "for regular usage," plus the D3DRM.zip file.

If you are asked to enter a password when you try to extract files from the .zip archives, check Dege's front page[dege.freeweb.hu] to find it. As I write this, the current password is "dege" (without quotes), but it changes periodically.


If you are using Windows Vista, 7, 8, or 8.1, you also need the D3DCompiler_47 file. Windows 10 users can skip it.

Check this picture if you're not sure which files to get. Ignore D3DCompiler_47 as it is no longer needed for anyone:



(The picture is from the old version of the site, but the layout and location of the download links is roughly the same as on the new site.)


Now open the dgVoodoo2_xx.zip archive.

- First, extract dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf to the ZanZarah\System folder (the same folder where zanzarah.exe is located).

- Then in the same archive, go into the MS\x86 folder and extract D3D8.dll, D3DImm.dll, and DDraw.dll to the ZanZarah\System folder as well.

- Close the dgVoodoo2_xx.zip archive.


- Open the D3DRM.zip archive and extract d3drm.dll to the ZanZarah\System folder.

- Close the D3DRM.zip archive.


- Open the D3DCompiler_47.zip archive and extract d3dcompiler_47.dll to the ZanZarah\System folder.

- Close the D3DCompiler_47.zip archive.


At this point, all of these files should be in the ZanZarah\System folder:
- dgVoodooCpl.exe
- dgVoodoo.conf
- D3D8.dll
- D3DImm.dll
- DDraw.dll
- d3drm.dll
- d3dcompiler_47.dll (no longer necessary)

If all the files are in the right place, you can go ahead and delete the downloaded zip archives, or move them to a backup folder for later use.


Now run dgVoodooCpl.exe from the ZanZarah\System folder to open the dgVoodoo Control Panel.

Select the DirectX tab. Near the bottom, uncheck dgVoodoo Watermark.

Click OK to apply the settings and close the window.

ZanZarah is now ready to play.

After you've started the game and verified that everything is running smoothly, you can go back to the dgVoodoo Control Panel and try making enhancements to the game, like increasing the resolution (Choose 2x, 3x, or 4x. Using specific resolutions like 1280x960 or 1920x1080 might cause the game's menu text to look ugly), adding anisotropic filtering or phong shading, or running in windowed mode.

I have not done much testing with these features myself. And I've found that certain settings like windowed mode will often cause games to crash. So I recommend only changing one setting at a time to see what effect it has on the game before changing another.

If you're having problems with the in-game menus, make sure you select a 32-bit video resolution in the ZanZarah launcher. That is the window that pops up whenever you launch the game from Steam.

In the Video tab of the launcher, you have the following options:

640x480x16
800x600x16
1024x768x16
640x480x32
800x600x32
1024x768x32

Using any of the bolded resolutions should fix the menus.

Thanks to Steam user DER Ralen for their help with this issue.

Enjoy the game. If you are trying to download dgVoodoo and the website is down (happens occasionally), post a comment here or on my Steam profile page and I will provide you with my own copy.

Also feel free to leave a comment here if you have any problems or questions and I will try to help.