Solved StarCraft fix holy cow!

[senselocke]

Wow, it's actually working!

Dear squall leonhart:

I love you. For serious, man, I do.

I just tried Stormrise, Endwar, and Halo Wars, and all it made me wanna do was play Starcraft. But I have only one new laptop, and Starcraft was screwing up something fierce. I've been fiddling for hours trying to get it to work, and nothing did--except those registry entries you posted.

It's working perfectly. You are a wonderful, helpful person, and it would be nice if there were more like you online. Thanks so much, and have a great day.

ps--I made an account here just to thank you, cause you're awesome.

 

[cornel001]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\Starcraft116]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="Starcraft.exe"
"ID"=hex:ca,89,65,49

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\Starcraft116]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="Starcraft.exe"
"ID"=hex:ca,89,65,49

Whats the practical differences between them ? Do we need both ?
I've merged the second and it works.
The best solution far now.

 

[jtw7]

It looks like the Wow6432Node is for 64-bit versions of Windows. See this.
Since you're running a 32-bit version, I would assume you don't need it.

-JT

 

[DarkFang]

I'm not sure why this works, but apparently it does. So thanks for sharing this with us.

 

[DrumCorpsNut]

I wasn't able to fix the problem by simply opening the screen resolution window. However, if I changed the theme to "Windows Classic" in addition to opening the resolution window, the game worked perfectly again. Just right click on your desktop, click "personalize", and scroll down until you see Windows Classic.

I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64bit.

 

[ExcaliburXVII]

I've tried every solution on the web and none of them work. They help, but there are still messed up colors afterwards. I updated drivers, and for the hell of it I tried running StarCraft with no video drivers. It ran, and the menu was messed up, the cutscene was messed up (I'm trying to refresh myself before II comes out.), but the briefing menu was perfect, and so was the game, save for a very slight choppiness. Thus, I've concluded that it has to be the nVidia drivers, but I have no idea what I'd do to fix this. There aren't any settings that seem relevant in StarCraft's settings in the nVidia Control Panel, either. Halp?

 

[ExcaliburXVII]

I uninstalled my drivers again, ran it, and this time everything is running perfectly. I don't really want to have to uninstall my drivers to play StarCraft.

 

[GivingHope]

The only solution that works for me is having the Screen Resolution window open and then running starCraft.
I run it with these compatibility settings:

• Run in 256 colors
• Disable visual themes
• Disable desktop composition
• Display display scaling on high DPI settings
• Run as administrator

This method also works for me with Age of Empires 2.

OK, this one actually works. I have Windows 7 Ultimate x64 but unfortunately, I cannot update my drivers since I have switchable graphics (HD 5650 + Intel GMA) and my manufacturer has not released any new drivers for months. I can probably find some alpha/beta drivers but they're a bit risky to install. Killing explorer.exe was a workaround ,but my switchable graphics drivers got screwed up in the process. Anyways, I found a fix to my issue. For those of you who have a HP Envy 14 or any laptop with switchable graphics ( I suppose any laptop with Intel GMA would work), here's what I did:
1. Change SC to scale the entire full screen. I had to first go to Intel GMA mode and go to Intel GMA settings and look for "Panel Fit" and click on "Scale Full Screen".
2. I followed the steps above, started SC, and it worked.

 

[cornel001]

I've got nvidia at home and intel gma at job and the regedit solution worked for both. Give it a try, if you got the 1.16.

 

[ni0s]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\Starcraft116]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="Starcraft.exe"
"ID"=hex:ca,89,65,49

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\Compatibility\Starcraft116]
"Flags"=hex:00,08,00,00
"Name"="Starcraft.exe"
"ID"=hex:ca,89,65,49

This worked perfectly to get rid of the graphical artifacts each time I ran the game. Thank you!

(Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. Starcraft & Broodwar expansion with the latest patch[BW-1161].)

 

[mudlord]

If Squall_Leonhart is here:

I had a brainwave to automate this registry patching for other games. Some utility to automate getting the game filename, the process ID, and setting the registry keys accordingly, from just loading the game filename into the application. The application will then run the game until it boots, gathers the process ID information, forces the game to shutdown by killing its threads, and saving the information in the Compatibility tab of the Windows Registry.

What do you think Squall?

 

[daboarder]

Could someone please explain how to implement Squal's fix for the computer illiterate amongst us, I've tried everything except the explorer kill to fix Starcraft and the best I get is a single run and then it freezes on the next game.

 

[mudlord]

I am working out a method so Squall's fix can be made generically to any affected 256 colour game, so then its easy for newbs. I already worked out how to capture DirectDraw IDs, and its very easy to extract the filename only from a complete Windows path, and then stuff it into Registry keys.

The issue is working out how Windows generates the application's name for the Compatibility key. I have a hunch is related to window class ID, but not 100% sure since it will take some time to make sure if its true, OR if its possible to just add any name in there and it applies the fix regardless. If possibility 2 is true, shouldn't be too hard writing a patcher that does it.

EDIT: Okay, wrote the patcher. Tested on Starcraft and Warcraft II BNE. Only works on Windows 7 x64, it is also a 64bit application, too. Source code in C is included.

 

[Dragoon]

You patcher worked for me to fix the graphic errors. Gonna test this on some older games too this weekend.

 

[Gamer1238]

I am working out a method so Squall's fix can be made generically to any affected 256 colour game, so then its easy for newbs. I already worked out how to capture DirectDraw IDs, and its very easy to extract the filename only from a complete Windows path, and then stuff it into Registry keys.

The issue is working out how Windows generates the application's name for the Compatibility key. I have a hunch is related to window class ID, but not 100% sure since it will take some time to make sure if its true, OR if its possible to just add any name in there and it applies the fix regardless. If possibility 2 is true, shouldn't be too hard writing a patcher that does it.

EDIT: Okay, wrote the patcher. Tested on Starcraft and Warcraft II BNE. Only works on Windows 7 x64, it is also a 64bit application, too. Source code in C is included.

I used the Patcher on my 32 bit system running Pro 7.... StarCraft Now runs like a dream thank you....

Was it only meant to work on a 64bit system??

 

[mudlord]

Correct, it was originally a x64 application, I recompiled it and did some updates to work on Win7 x86.

 

[Saint Oni]

How do I download this patcher?
I am getting a 404

 

[Dwarf]

It looks like he is having problems with his site. I checked the link, and got a 404 error. Going to the site root yields the following, meaning that the site is there, but has no content.

 

[Dragoon]

Until Mudlord website comes up again I uploaded the patcher to a filehoster.

Edit: For some reason this board now censor the filehoster mediafire.
When I got the time I upload to Microsoft Skydrive.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=D034BBE083742AB4!127&authkey=!AACgEId3o4wp0bM



Edit: Added the originial patcher as attachments because the filehoster sometimes goes offline.

Added a second russian directdraw patcher.

Description:

===============================================================
DirectDraw Compatibility Tool
===============================================================

[ Program purpose ]

DirectDraw Compatibility Tool is designed to fix color palette corruption
in the old games (Fallout, Age of Empires, Worms Armageddon, Theme
Hospital and other from the second half of the 90th).
Corruption occurs because of incompatibility between graphical
interface Windows Aero and games intended to work with DirectX 7
DirectDraw or an older DirectX version. Both Windows Vista and
Windows 7 have built-in compatibility tools for such games. But to invoke
compatibility mode there should be information about specific exe-file in
the corresponding part of the registry. DirectDraw Compatibility Tool allows
to completely automate process of compatibility rules creation.

[ Program functions ]

DirectDraw Compatibility Tool has two operation modes:
- create compatibility rules for a given game;
- save compatibility rules to the reg-file.

'Apply' button allows to automatically create compatibility rule. When
field 'Pathname of the target exe-file' contains desired game, on button-
press it will be analyzed and corresponding rule will be formed. If problems
where caused by incompatibility on DirectDraw level they should cease
immediately after rule creation. But it's probable that there are some other
problems which have to be solved with different tools or could not be
solved at all. For example Worms Armageddon version 1.3 doesn't run
under Windows 7 x64, meanwhile version 3.6.29 processed with the
Compatibility Tool runs smoothly under that OS.
If 'Pathname of the target exe-file' is empty, button 'Apply' will open the
file selection dialog.

'Create reg-file' button allows to export compatibility rule as a Windows
registry file. This file could be imported into the registry manually or
distributed along with the game. I need to admit that reg-files are different
for 32- and 64-bit Windows (64-bit version has keys in the additional registry
brunch). In the case of the automatic rule creation ('Apply' button)
DirectDraw Compatibility Tool detects Windows version itself. Manual
application of the reg-file from the 32-bit Windows most probably will not
give a positive result on the 64-bit OS but reg-file from the 64-bit Windows
could be used on the 32-bit OS version seamlessly. In the latter case one
redundant registry key will be created.

[ Supported games ]

Updated list of the supported games will be published on the DirectDraw
Compatibility Tool web-page. Click 'homepage' link in the upper right
corner of the program window to get there. If you managed to solve
problems with a game which is not in the list, you could help the project
leaving a comment on the site.
At the current moment color corruption has been fixed for Fallout 1,
Fallout 2, Worms Armageddon (version 3.6.29), WarCraft 2 Battle.net
Edition and Theme Hospital. This method should work for Age of Empires
as well but has not been really tested.

[ From author ]

Hope I made a life of an old-gamers and fans a little easier. Any
comment and suggestion are welcome, especially since the program
homepage is my blog.

Copyright 2010 Galogen
English Localization by ALCHEMIST

 

[hariharanblr]

Thank you Messiah

zZanthraXx
BeholdHisNoodlyAppendage

​

Sir, you are one of those things mankind needs to feel eternally grateful to. You are the reason I even bothered creating a profile on this site. Your fix for StarCraft colors deserves nothing less than a Nobel. If you have other forums where you've posted this fix, please post them here so I can join each of them just to thank you! You are by far the most amazing thing mankind ever bothered to create in the last quarter century or so.

THANK YOU FOR THE FIX!​