StarCraft freezes after 1-5 minutes of playing

KnowledgeWorker · Nov 15, 2009

Ok. Has been unlikely anyway.

The new NVIDIA beta drivers didn't help, yet it "only" freezes in Multiplayer now, which is the bigger problem though!

Millionaire2K · Nov 16, 2009

Guys I know its not StarCraft but I have this SAME exact problem with RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. The game will run for a few mins and then just randomly lock my pc (no mouse or key responce). Only thing I can do is to do a Hard Reset of my PC.

I sure hope someone is looking at the big picture and is working on an official fix.

YottaByte · Nov 16, 2009

I have an ATI card (HD4890) and I don't think it's a driver issue. I think it's a compatibility issue. I could try running StarCraft in windowed mode, but it's quite hard to play like that. But I would like to see if it still crashes even if it's not in full screen. I think I should try emailing blizzard report and tell them that a lot of players are encountering problems with StarCraft on Windows 7 RC - Windows 7 RTM/Final Release.

qwazed · Nov 19, 2009

I have the same freezing problem both on my notebook and desktop PC whitch have Win 7. I really hope a solution will come up eventually because I cannot play SC at all.

squall leonhart · Nov 20, 2009

I have this issue across 3 systems, all of which use different cpu's and video adapters.

all use x64.

and worse, is that its not just starcraft thats effected.

cpuboye11 · Nov 22, 2009

Hey guys-

Just feel I should throw in what is happening to my computers and starcraft as well.

I have the latest Win7 and all the updates for both my computers.

Laptop- Win7 pro 32bit
desktop- win7 pro 64bit

I can play single player as much as I want with no problem. But when I attempt to play a lan game or a battle.net game I crash some where between 6-20 min in to the game. Audio of the game still plays but no visual or key commands work. And on other computers the game shows me laggy and causing them to drop me.

Desktop has a x4 amd with a 4870 and the laptop has a p4 x2 with a intel based chipset.... So nothing in hardware is the same.

kyle

HughShaw · Nov 22, 2009

I guess nobody is listening to me...lol! Check out my thread here.

squall leonhart · Nov 23, 2009

cpuboye11 said:
Hey guys-

Just feel I should throw in what is happening to my computers and starcraft as well.

I have the latest Win7 and all the updates for both my computers.

Laptop- Win7 pro 32bit
desktop- win7 pro 64bit

I can play single player as much as I want with no problem. But when I attempt to play a lan game or a battle.net game I crash some where between 6-20 min in to the game. Audio of the game still plays but no visual or key commands work. And on other computers the game shows me laggy and causing them to drop me.

Desktop has a x4 amd with a 4870 and the laptop has a p4 x2 with a intel based chipset.... So nothing in hardware is the same.

kyle

Starcraft freezes anywhere between the main menu, and 30 minutes into a mission regardless of online or offline play for me.

I guess nobody is listening to me...lol! Check out my thread here.

not at all, its more the fact that we shouldn't have to for old games that shouldn't cause such issues.

cpuboye11 · Nov 24, 2009

HughShaw said:
I guess nobody is listening to me...lol! Check out my thread here.

Yea.... I really don't want to run it in a window like that.. I don't even like the xp emulator tool or running XP within 7. An operating system should be able to run something like this. It worked fine in Vista ( at least for me with color issues ) and it works in Ubuntu and on Macs. So there is really no reason why this shouldn't work in 7... I mean come on... I can name 23 people ( had to count ) that play Starcraft still and didn't go to XP when it came out because they were unsure if it would run. Again for vista. And again for 7. Now they switched to and are still using XP, and have no plans to go to vista or 7. They have plans to go to Ubuntu....

~ EDIT ADDED: Its funny how one game can change someones mind.... Like I'm about to.... Games that won't run for me: Starcraft Online, Age of Empires any, Dawn of War- has online and lan issues, and simcity 4 isn't working..

Don't care if its older software. I want to play it! And I'm not duel booting just because of this. All of these software titles worked in Vista 64 and should work in 7 64.

cfn · Nov 24, 2009

I had the same freezing problem... HAD!

Here's my solution: before starting SC change your desktop theme to Windows Classic. After u start SC, press Alt + Tab, go to Task Manager and set affinity to CPU 0 only (for SC of course...). I've recently been using Chaos Launcher to play SC (maybe it has sth to do too...).

Anyway, no crashes for almost two weeks now

squall leonhart · Nov 25, 2009

I had the same freezing problem... HAD! Here's my solution: before starting SC change your desktop theme to Windows Classic. After u start SC, press Alt + Tab, go to Task Manager and set affinity to CPU 0 only (for SC of course...). I've recently been using Chaos Launcher to play SC (maybe it has sth to do too...).

Affinity has nothing to do with this specific issue. the affinity specific issue was fixed in 1.16. Also affinity never caused Age of empires, or Worms to freeze.

Anyway. If microsoft has no fix, then i guess my friend will be getting busy and making a DDraw > D3D wrapper to bypass DDraw entirely.

How does HqX shaders sound for filtering? lol.

HughShaw · Nov 25, 2009

Black Macgyver said:
I've tried the vmware combination to run starcraft and it still locked the computer, but in a totally different way. This time I can move my mouse, but the keyboard is still locked, and there's a window popping up and the only way out as that window wouldn't close neither and just sat there, was a hard reset. I only did it once though so i don't know what are my luck this thing going to happen again.

That's because you're supposed to press "Ctrl + Alt" when the Starcraft window is open in VMware to get to desktop input. More info here.

I applied the...
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
C:\"Program Files"\"Starcraft"\"StarCraft.exe"
start explorer.exe
...method, and it does fix the colors. But I still get a freeze every 1 hour or so. And it doesn't relaunch explorer for me, only rarely.

squall leonhart · Nov 26, 2009

Thats an unecessarily destructive method. All you need to do is pause the explorer threads, which im sure you can do just as easily with a batch file

YottaByte · Nov 28, 2009

Instead of just sitting here waiting for the answer I've been looking for, I decided to take some initiative and e-mail blizzard support. This is their response delivered relatively quick.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us regarding StarCraft. Unfortunately this is a known issue. Please right click on the StarCraft icon and select Properties, click on the Compatibility tab. Under the Settings section, please select "Run in 256 Colors", "Run in 640x480 resolution", "Disable Visual Themes" and "Run as Administrator". This should work for many customers.

Although forcing the colors to 256 colors as well as forcing the 640x480 resolution should resolve the graphical issues, we have noticed it doesn't for each type of video card. From other customers we have heard that force quitting the Explorer.exe file from the task manager and then running StarCraft right away seems to resolve it (CTRL ALT DELETE -> Start Task Manager).

Other then that the only other thing I can suggest is to play StarCraft while in Safe mode, since Safe mode will not load your video card drivers, it will not attempt to force the color scheme. To do this, please follow the appropriate instructions for your Windows version on this page:
Blizzard Support

If you have any Technical Issues, feel free to give me an e-mail.

Best Regards,

Kenneth
Blizzard Entertainment
Technical Support
Blizzard Support

I personally like to play my starcraft stretched on my 19 inch widescreen, and don't want it to be in the 640x480 resolution, but oh well... I have not tested to see if this works yet

TaraSWinTeam · Nov 28, 2009

Check your software and driver compatibility here: Windows 7 Compatibility Center home.

Cheers,
Tara
Windows Outreach Team

squall leonhart · Nov 29, 2009

@Yottabyte.

It doesn't.

Issue 1.
Ddraw is VMd/Emulated on NT6+ using D3D. D3D requires functional Video drivers.
Issue 2.
None of the compatibility settings fix either the colours, or the freeze under win7. Though some have discovered using a 5:4 or 4:3 monitor can help with the colour.

Check your software and driver compatibility here: Windows 7 Compatibility Center home.

Cheers,
Tara
Windows Outreach Team

Don't give us that generic crap, if you aren't a senior developer you aren't qualified to be advising on this situation. There is a high level race issue in the operating system when running full screen 256 colour DDraw applications, which even developers who have written DDraw for years cannot seem to work out.

If it was the driver interface, it would be a low level race issue resulting in a bsod or hardlock, but since its only a freeze of the directx / display and secondary audio and applications continue to function in the background, the only point it could be is at the API level.

And when you enter the right search query... look what you find

http://www.codenamewindows.com/?p=58

As i have checked... DWM is not disabled when a fullscreen DDraw app is run on windows 7. This has been the case since the prebeta versions.

hax · Nov 29, 2009

If I can help in anyway let me know, as I used to have the errors and now I don't anymore.
And it definitely was no hardware issue for me.

And the people suggesting to play in safe mode / other os and so on ... those are not solutions but merely bad jokes I hope. I mean I don't go to a mechanic with a car problem and expect to be told "well you can ride a bike ..."

squall leonhart · Nov 29, 2009

This is what i was pointing to specifically

Windows 7: Applications manifested for Windows 7 cannot call Lock API in DDRAW to lock the primary Desktop video buffer. Doing so will result in error, and NULL pointer for the primary will be returned. This behavior is enforced even if Desktop Window Manager Composition is not turned on. Windows 7 compatible applications must not lock the primary video buffer to render.
Windows Vista (default): Applications will be able to acquire a lock on the primary video buffer as legacy applications depend on this behavior. Running the application turns off Desktop Window Manager.

DWM must disable in order for the application to lock the backbuffer, This behavior can be reproduced in OpenGL applications that request a lockable backbuffer, but not in DDraw applications.

Now i've noticed 16bit and 32bit DD apps, such as emulators do not freeze in fullscreen, nor do they have the colour palette issue. However these apps have been adapted over time to support XP.

Hax, have you tried manually disabling the DWM service in Services.msc prior to playing?

Aral · Nov 29, 2009

How do you disable the DWM service ? i can't find it in services.msc

edit : btw i have the same problem on windows 7 64bit

I tried to use virtual pc 2007 but there is some latency in the mouse or its not configured properly anyway i cant play with it in the best conditions

Should i try VMWare?

squall leonhart · Nov 29, 2009

Aral said:
How do you disable the DWM service ? i can't find it in services.msc

edit : btw i have the same problem on windows 7 64bit

I tried to use virtual pc 2007 but there is some latency in the mouse or its not configured properly anyway i cant play with it in the best conditions

Should i try VMWare?

No point, i just did some funky stuff with windbg and its not as simply as DWM not disabling, the blasted application is failing to lock the primary buffer regardless of DWM being enabled or not. God only knows why this is. The only thing i can think of at this point is that these games are behaving like windows 7 manifested apps for some reason so Primary buffer locking is not allowed regardless of dwm being enabled or disabled.

Its looking more and more like the only fix is going to be rerouting the api into D3D directly.

StarCraft freezes after 1-5 minutes of playing

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