StarCraft freezes after 1-5 minutes of playing

HughShaw · Dec 2, 2009

BTW, I'm currently running StarCraft in Windows 7, not in XP Mode. I just put up with the freezing every other game.

I'll try out Chaoslauncher. What exactly does it do and does it fix the freezing problem?

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 2, 2009

HughShaw said:
I'll try out Chaoslauncher. What exactly does it do and does it fix the freezing problem?

Chaos Launcher runs Star Craft in windowed mode if you'd like, runs it in double-size (though I had issues with it), and DOES fix the freezing issue (at least so far, I've played 2 complete games with it). It does run Star Craft in a small window (hence the double-size mode) but it looks great and also removes the graphics glitch.

It's a free program that just launches Star Craft so I don't think it's illegal or anything. Just a heads up, it would be a good idea to read the Readme file before using Chaos Launcher, as it tells you the key combinations needed to do certain things (like using alt and function buttons, etc).

I hope this helps people for now!

HughShaw · Dec 3, 2009

Well I downloaded Chaoslauncher and Avast reported the main executable of being a trojan. Not sure if it's a false positive, but I'm not willing to see.

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 3, 2009

I have Avast Antivirus 4.8 Professional and Ad Aware Pro Anniversary Edition, both fully updated, and neither of them said anything for me, until I checked this post. Now for some reason Avast says the same thing.

I can tell you for a fact that the program worked 100%. I played two complete games with it.

Interesting how now it wants to claim it's a Trojan. On a side note, most programs that have to do with modding games or hacking them get reported as trojans by your AV software. It has something to do with the way the code's written even though it's not malware.

It's your guys' choice obviously, but I was just trying to provide a solution that worked for me when nothing else here did.

squall leonhart · Dec 3, 2009

its just behavior pattern based heuristics.

anyway, we already know it works in a window... the point is not having to, nor having to use a VM.

HughShaw · Dec 3, 2009

Actually he said that he didn't have any freezes and it seems like he meant full-screen mode.

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 3, 2009

HughShaw said:
Actually he said that he didn't have any freezes and it seems like he meant full-screen mode.

Right. No freezes, no color issues, and when I put it in "double size" mode it made it full screen (to the point that things were cut off a bit).

I use it mostly now in windowed mode though now Avast reports it as a trojan, I've gotten rid of it. Shame. :cry:

HughShaw · Dec 3, 2009

Well it might have still freezed if you played a few more long games. At first it didn't freeze for me, but after a while it started freezing once every 1-2 hours.

How do we run Starcraft in windows mode? Perhaps if we run the window in our exact resolution, then it won't be a window anymore ay guys? (It's funny because if StarCraft worked perfectly, I wouldn't be playing it so much to try and get it to work)

Aral · Dec 3, 2009

chaos launcher doesnt make starcraft freeze?

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 3, 2009

Aral said:
chaos launcher doesnt make starcraft freeze?

Well it didn't for me but HughShaw said it did for him after 1-2 hours.

HughShaw · Dec 3, 2009

No, I meant just playing normally since I haven't tried Chaoslauncher.

squall leonhart · Dec 5, 2009

Well i've been screwing around with other apps and i believe i have proved that it is a DirectDraw wide failure in locking the primary buffer.

making use of the emulator FCEU (nes emu) i found that with double buffering enabled, (a commonly used method to offset the risk of Vsync slowing down rendering) which requires the locking of the primary frame buffer. the Windows start menu orb and taskbar buttons (those flashing the button atleast) were rendered on top of the application in fullscreen. Had the frame buffer locked properly it would not have these draw ontop.

the good news is that the D3D Wrapper is looking to get under Dev soon since my friend has finally gotten Win7 compatible updates for the "Tools" he uses.

HughShaw · Dec 5, 2009

Are you gonna release these "tools" for the community?

squall leonhart · Dec 5, 2009

the tools.... not so much

... the wrapper yeah, after hes got it together and forced me and Lazure through beta testing

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 5, 2009

Thanks for your hard work and I'm looking forward to your fix!

Lazure · Dec 5, 2009

Yeah, I'll certainly be testing the wrapper. Currently, I resort to running these games in a virtual machine.

While the games run GREAT in the VM, they run in a tiny lil window which can be hard to see when a game is only 640x480. =p

HughShaw · Dec 6, 2009

Squall, I see that you are very busy with this issue on Microsoft Answers. Let's all vote to need an answer so that Microsoft does something!

squall leonhart · Dec 10, 2009

Well... it looks like the issue is not DWM, rather its the windows shell itself. Applications which call for Vsync via Vblank are having the taskbar draw on topic of parts of the screen that draw black, and also does so on the classic theme.

these are also probably what causes the flickering colours, and the inability to lock the primary buffer in order to vsync.

dbgoldberg323 · Dec 11, 2009

squall leonhart said:
Well... it looks like the issue is not DWM, rather its the windows shell itself. Applications which call for Vsync via Vblank are having the taskbar draw on topic of parts of the screen that draw black, and also does so on the classic theme.

these are also probably what causes the flickering colours, and the inability to lock the primary buffer in order to vsync.

So in other words, keep XP on one machine and run SC from there? Seems my old laptop is running it perfectly with 0 interruptions so far (been a week now).

Aral · Dec 11, 2009

what a pain in the ass really...

I'm kind of lost by all the technical explanations but do you think there is a chance that microsoft does something about this ?

StarCraft freezes after 1-5 minutes of playing

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