Cannot get Starcraft to run on my Windows 7 Netbook:

[jread]

I struggled with this all night last night and am still unable to get it to work:

I downloaded Starcraft from Blizzard yesterday (original plus Broodwar expansion called: Starcraft Anthology) as I wanted to play it on my netbook. When I try to launch the .exe, I get the following error message:

http://imgur.com/jpPQb.gif

To remedy this, I have tried a bunch of different things after various Google searches: running in compatibility mode, changing my display settings then trying to run the game, turning off explorer.exe, starting the game with the Display Settings window up (yes, this actually works for a lot of Win7 users), etc. Nothing I do seems to get me past this error message.

Here are the specs for my system:

Brand: Acer Aspire One Netbook
Processor: Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHZ
RAM: 2GB
OS: Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit
Graphics: Intel GMA 500 integrated graphics, driver: 8.14.10.2011
DirectX: Version 10.0


If anyone can think of something that may help, please let me know. Any and all advice is most appreciated as I am at wit's end.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Hate to ask but did you update your DirectX? I forget if SC had the option of different approaches to the rendering like D2 had, since I never really had to change SC settings. Also if you have no DirectX installed might be creating the error?

Beyond that, contact Blizzard and see if they have anything to say? A few months ago I downloaded the same files from them but couldn't connect online after a month or two because there was a new patch and the files I had gotten back then were botched so they couldn't be patched.

 

[jread]

Hate to ask but did you update your DirectX? I forget if SC had the option of different approaches to the rendering like D2 had, since I never really had to change SC settings. Also if you have no DirectX installed might be creating the error?

Beyond that, contact Blizzard and see if they have anything to say? A few months ago I downloaded the same files from them but couldn't connect online after a month or two because there was a new patch and the files I had gotten back then were botched so they couldn't be patched.

I have DirectX 10.0 and am running the latest video driver (for Windows 7). I read somewhere that the integrated video chipset I'm using (GMA 500) is compatible with 10.1 but I can't find a download for 10.1 for Windows 7 anywhere.

 

[jread]

HAH! I FINALLY got it to work! This is completely ridiculous, but I went into the Device Manager, went to the Display Adapters, then selected my graphics adapter (Intel GMA 500). Double clicked it, then went to Update Drivers, selected "Pick from list", and selected "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter", then installed the driver. Restarted my machine (now in VGA mode) and Starcraft played perfectly. When I was done, I went through the same process but installed my regular driver to go back to normal resolution/colors.

It is going to be a real pain in the ass to have to do this every time I want to play Starcraft, but at least it works. Apparently the drivers for the GMA 500 don't support 256-color mode AT ALL (wonderful).

 

[gaidensensei]

Can't you set a compatibility mode for running in 256 mode, if you right click the shortcut?

 

[jread]

Can't you set a compatibility mode for running in 256 mode, if you right click the shortcut?

Yes, the options are there, but they don't seem to do anything.

 

[gaidensensei]

I searched into your problem, seems like it's limited to GMA500 chipsets like you mentioned. Blizzard has a history of abandoning their older software, so it looks like only third party alternatives are the only method to use.

 

[simonizor]

I searched into your problem, seems like it's limited to GMA500 chipsets like you mentioned. Blizzard has a history of abandoning their older software, so it looks like only third party alternatives are the only method to use.

I'm sorry, but that's just a ridiculous claim. Blizzard is one of the companies with the best long term support out of any of them. The last Starcraft patch was on Jan 22 2009. Starcraft was released in March of 1998. That's 11 years of support! Can you name any other video game company that supports their products for this long?

 

[gaidensensei]

I'm sorry, but that's just a ridiculous claim. Blizzard is one of the companies with the best long term support out of any of them. The last Starcraft patch was on Jan 22 2009. Starcraft was released in March of 1998. That's 11 years of support! Can you name any other video game company that supports their products for this long?

What I meant to say was hardware updates, not content updates.
I think it looked pretty obvoius to me that they have not been working on making modern graphics cards working flawlessly with their older games, pre-WC3 era.

 

[Raduque]

I'm one of the first people to bash Blizzard ever since they got bought by Activision, but this time it's not their fault. It's Intel's fault for not implementing a standard display color depth in their drivers.

 

[jread]

It's Intel's fault for not implementing a standard display color depth in their drivers.

Completely agree.

 

[beginner99]

I'm one of the first people to bash Blizzard ever since they got bought by Activision, but this time it's not their fault. It's Intel's fault for not implementing a standard display color depth in their drivers.

*sign*

the gma500 is not as bad as is often said. it actually has 720p hardware acceleration support which the normal N-Atom platform does not have (only ION).
It would probably also be better for gaming than the standard n-atom thing.
(there are some nice demos of doom 3 on gma500 with "real drivers").

The issue is that the drivers more than suck. they are plain crap. It's like putting windows on a i7 at it would then be limited to p4 speeds and 1 core.
And they ain't doing anything to improve this.

The reason for doing nothing is obvious. First the marekt is probably too small to warrant any serious investemnt and secondly if z-atom netbooks actually had a useful gma500 driver the use for n-atom netbooks and even more for CULV "ultra-thins" would be much lower. (hd-youtube would work then on z-atoms!). so it' basically an artifical market segregation.