Starcraft-WIN2K crash issues

[ptomic]

Everyone is probably tired of SC technical questions, but I'm rather desperate. I've played Starcraft on my PC under WIN98 fine, but then I got WIN2K (and bought a new SC battle chest).

I install SC...fine
I run SC...fine
I click SINGLE PLAYER...fine
I click Terran...CRASH!!!!

At first I tried Zerg and Protoss, they crashed to darkness. Custom map? crash to black screen. I tried installing brood-war, patching to .10, running in COMPAT mode, updating DirectX (version 9), and reinstalling altogether (4 times and counting).

It's wierd that I can get all the way to the Race selection screen before it freezes. I can still hear the damn music playing...AAAAA!

[NegotiatorSmith]

Actually, not too many Starcraft technical questions are posted here, as the game is not nearly as sensitive to system problems as Diablo II and Warcraft III are. :)

Did you install Windows 2000 over Windows 98? If you did, I highly recommend that you back up your data and install 2000 from scratch. In general, installing a newer version of Windows over an existing installation is asking for trouble.

Have you installed the latest drivers for all of your hardware and all of the latest Windows updates for your system yet?

I'm just curious, are you able to connect to Battle.net and play a game on there successfully?

Did you close ALL non-essential running processes in the Task Manager before you started up the game and tried to play?

It could be an issue with your disc. I know you said that you got a new Battle Chest, but if you have your old disc or you can get your hands on another one, try using it.

[ptomic]

Yes,
Yes,
No,
Yes.

I'm going to try to reinstall W2K this weekend, thanks for the advice.


*edit*

Or am I better off (in terms of gaming compatability) with WIN98? (I highly distrust XP)

[NegotiatorSmith]

Starcraft as well as all other games designed for Windows 95 and up should run fine under Windows 2000; you really don't want to go back to 98. The stability of the NT kernel should be enough reason for you to stick with it.

What happens when you try to connect to Battle.net and play a game?

When you install Windows 2000 from scratch, update your drivers, update DirectX, update Windows and don't install anything else except for Starcraft. We want to see if the game runs fine with as clean of an installation as possible (I bet it will).

[ptomic]

Oh, it turns black (as if its just fading to the Battle.net screen) and then just...keeps black. It does play the music though. (I waited for 10 mins, but nothing)

[NegotiatorSmith]

I just did a little experimentation, and I discovered that when you click one of the single-player campaign options or the Custom Game option, it's required that your CD be in your CD-ROM drive. If the game has a problem reading the appropriate data from the CD, it will crash with an error. I'm guessing that the problem is with your CD or an issue with your system trying to read the aforementioned data on the CD (even though it's new), as I can't think of any other reason why the game would lock up only when you click a single-player option. Recently, I have seen two cases where the game locked up when it tried to go to a mission briefing screen; it turns out that the person's CD was at fault in each case (damaged in some way).

I'd still give the fresh Windows 2000 install a try if you're up to it. If it doesn't work, see if you can try playing the game with another CD.

[ptomic]

The CD thing may very well be it. I'm going to try using my other CD drive, and using brood war CD...and as many things with the drives as possible. I have a whole night of fiddling ahead of me....*sigh*

[ptomic]

Ah, you probably already know this, but I found the Registry Key where it tells Starcraft to look for the Starcraft CD....mine was set to the DVD drive, the one where I DIDNT have the CD, convient eh? Anyway, I'm going to fix it and try again.

Its at My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\Starcraft\

The key is called StarCD

[ptomic]

Nope. Still crashes.

[NegotiatorSmith]

Actually, the registry key thing didn't even cross my mind. I'm guessing that your CD-ROM drive was assigned a different drive letter when you installed Windows 2000 and that when you uninstalled and reinstalled the game, the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Starcraft registry key didn't get removed or changed, therefore causing the StarCD value to have incorrect data.

[ptomic]

I disabled my other drive (from Windows hardware manager) AND set StarCD to the right drive..didn't work. However, because it can run the opening cinematic from the CD (I can hear the little **** spinning up) I wonder how it can run some things from the CD and then think its gone when the actual game starts?

I'm going to try switching my drives. EG using my DVD drive to run the game disk and disabling my normal one. It's worth a try?

[NegotiatorSmith]

Disabling your other drive probably wouldn't affect anything...

Just because the opening cinematic can be read off the CD doesn't mean that other things on the CD can be read properly as well. I think it's more likely that the problem lies with your CDs and not your drives, but I guess it's worth a try if you disable the one drive and use the other.

[ptomic]

I assume NOCD cracks are out of the question? (yes, I am desperate)

[ptomic]

I'm going to install and try the BroodWar CD...again. In both drives...

[NegotiatorSmith]

Well, it's your choice whether you want to use a no-CD crack or not. If you successfully connect to Battle.net while using the no-CD crack, there is a possibility that your account will be closed and/or your CD-key disabled (as a result of using a program that modifies your game executable). If you still want to use one, sorry, links to places where you can get one won't be provided. ;)

Now that I think about it, a no-CD crack wouldn't solve the problem anyway, as the campaign data still needs to be read off the CD; the no-CD crack just makes it so you don't have to insert the disc to start up the game.

One thing you could try is making an image of your CD and then using it in a virtual drive...

[ptomic]

How exactly would I go about doing that?

[ptomic]

(and, your right, the NOCD crack sounds like a REALLY desperate measure, not a mildy despairing measure, which is what I'm looking for)

[NegotiatorSmith]

If you have a program like Nero that can burn CDs, you can use that to make an image of your disc - simply select the Image Recorder as your recorder.

If you don't have a program like that, you could use the "demonstration" version of CDRWin:

http://www.goldenhawk.com/cdrwin.htm

EDIT:

After you've made the image, load it into a virtual CD-ROM drive using a virtual CD-ROM drive program like Daemon Tools:

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/portal/download.php?mode=ViewCategory&catid=5

[ptomic]

Thank you so much for your informative posts. I think, however, that I'm going to turn in and give it another try tomorrow...Yawn.

[NegotiatorSmith]

Good luck... hopefully the problem is as simple as a bad disc that can be replaced. :)

[ptomic]

Well, its morning again, so I'm going to try to make a Global Image on my Hardrive with Prassi Primo CD PLUS, which I have a full registered copy of. Then I'll use deamon tools to make it virtual. Thank you again!

[Ocean]

i dont think it is the game that is crashing. i think that your video card isnt displaying the differing resolution and bit depth of the game.



runs fine on my win2k

[NegotiatorSmith]

AFAIK all of Starcraft's different menus/screens are displayed at 640x480@256 colors... if his computer was having a problem switching to that resolution and color depth, the game wouldn't run at all. It does run, it's just that he encounters this crash/freeze at certain specific points in the game where data is read off the CD.

[ptomic]

Well, I tried alot today actually. Just for refference, my total number of install/uninstall cycles is around 20 (but I did each of these tests FOUR times, once with unpatched original, once with patched original, once with unpatched broodwar, once with patched broodwar, so the total number is probably more like 80).

I am 99% sure that the problem is the CD, except after spending all morning fooling with virtual drives and creating images, I tried some other solutions. I found every key in the registry with Starcraft and Blizzard in them and made sure that they weren't full of misleading information. I tried installing it in its default directory, and re-installing directX. I also checked my WindowsUpdate (SP4) for compatability issues, and I ran DXDIAG and checked all tests.

I just had an idea...I'm going to install a Spawn, which shouldn't (?) need any data from the CD, just to see if it works. Shouldn't that tell me if the error is from the CD or from my computer?

[NegotiatorSmith]

A spawn copy can't play single-player games, and it can't join multiplayer games that aren't created by the spawner. If you can't connect to Battle.net with the full version, I doubt that you'll be able to connect with the spawn. But yes, if you can manage to get into a game with the spawn copy, that would mean that your CD is the problem.

So were you actually able to try using a disc image?

[ptomic]

Yes, several times, but the same error occured (If I managed to actually get it started at all). The Virtual drive programs were crashing and slowing down my machine, and some of them were bundled with adware, so I spent some time getting rid of them afterward.

[NegotiatorSmith]

Daemon Tools doesn't come bundled with adware, and I don't see how it crashed and slowed down your system...

Anyway, at this point, I would try to get your hands on a different disc if at all possible.

[ptomic]

I think it was GoldenHawk....(or it couldve been another util. I downloaded) I'm going to try installing it on another computer just to see if the disk works. Would that mess up my CD key if I did that though?

[NegotiatorSmith]

No, installing the game on another computer won't "mess up" your CD-key. The only way your CD-key can get "messed up" is if you or someone else uses it while hacking on Battle.net, which might result in the CD-key being disabled.