StarCraft

StarCraft

Developer(s)	Saffire Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	NA Blizzard Entertainment PAL Sierra Entertainment
Engine	Warcraft II engine
First release date	March 31, 1998

StarCraft

Developer(s)	Saffire Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	NA Blizzard Entertainment PAL Sierra Entertainment
Engine	Warcraft II engine
First release date	November 30, 1998

StarCraft

StarCraft	1998
StarCraft: Brood War
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty	2010
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

General information

TeamLiquid - Resource for keeping up with SC1 news

Battle.net Forums

Availability And Patches

Source(s)	Store unlock	Notes
Blizzard Store		Digital download, includes Brood War expansion
Blizzard Store		Includes guide books
Amazon
Amazon		Includes Brood War expansion
Amazon		Includes guide books
GameStop		Includes guide books

Brood War Expansion

Brood War adds an additional story line, new missions, and new units to the game. Although it improves on the game, the core of StarCraft is left intact, making for easier patching and bug fixing. In most cases, a fix for StarCraft will also fix Brood War.

StarCraft Battle Chest

Battle Chest is a box set containing StarCraft and Brood War, as well as official strategy guides for both games.

Battle.net Digital Download

By registering your CD-Key with Battle.net, you are able to download a pre-patched, combined version of StarCraft and Brood War.

Free Version Of StarCraft: Brood War

A free version of StarCraft: Brood War is available from ICCUP. The ICCUP are the largest non-Korean organization with a ladder system for organized play. Technically, the version is illegal as well as the private servers that the ICCUP host. However, Blizzard has not chosen enforce their copyright for some years.

The free version does have a number of restrictions:

No single player campaign.

No multiplayer on Battle.net (a hack is used to play on privately hosted ICCUP servers.

No music is included.

Improvements

Patches

The latest patches can be downloaded at Blizzard's Battle.net website. Brood War users only need to install the Brood War patch (it will update StarCraft as well). Current version is 1.161.

Mods

ChaosLauncher - ChaosLauncher allows you to run StarCraft with all the necessary mods like Windowed-Mode.

W-Mode - Allows you to play StarCraft in windowed mode using ChaosLauncher.

Game data

	Location
Save game location
Configuration files location

Video settings

Graphics option	Native	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			see Widescreen
Multi-monitor			Position Affects Gameplay
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)

Widescreen

Widescreen • [[StarCraft#Widescreen|Link]] DO NOT play in Battle.Net while using this hack. You might get banned. Have StarCraft and Broodwar updated to the latest version Game has been reported to be buggered running this solution. The camera scroll breaking is fixable in this updated one by shifting back to 640x480 then back to the res you were in. But the crash as level completes is still there. 1) Download Resolution Expander 5.1 and extract anywhere you want. 2) Change these lines to the desired resolution: ScreenWidth0=640 ScreenHight0=480 3) After setting your resolutions, run "InsectLoader.exe" to play Starcraft with the hack. 4) If you get an error message that StarCraft isn't installed propely, navigate to directory where Starcraft.exe is locateda and create a file called scfix.vbs Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") set svc=GetObject("winmgmts:root\default:StdRegProv") Wscript.Quit(svc.setStringValue(&H80000002, "SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\Starcraft", "Program", WshShell.currentDirectory & "\Starcraft.exe")) If your are using a 64bit OS and the fix doesn't work, try using this instead: Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") set svc=GetObject("winmgmts:root\default:StdRegProv") Wscript.Quit(svc.setStringValue(&H80000002, "SOFTWARE\wow6432node\Blizzard Entertainment\Starcraft", "Program", WshShell.currentDirectory & "\Starcraft.exe"))

Windowed

W-Mode - Allows you to play StarCraft in windowed mode using ChaosLauncher.

Input settings

Input Settings	Native	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		No mouse acceleration.
Controller support

Issues and Fixes

Color Artifacts on Windows 7

Playing StarCraft or its expansion Brood War using Windows 7 causes the colors in the game to become glitched, this is due to the way the coloring works in Windows 7. To solve this, you must stop explorer.exe, however explorer.exe is a very important file that Windows uses. Using a batch file with the script of starting StarCraft and closing explorer.exe, and upon exiting the game, restoring explorer.exe.

You can find a more detailed explanation in PCGamingWiki's Color Fixes For Older Games article.

Alternatively, you can try this registry fix:
32-bit Windows

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

64-bit Windows

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

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Windows 95	Windows 95
Processor (CPU)	90 MHz Pentium or Equivalent	90 MHz Pentium or Equivalent
System memory (RAM)	16 MB	32 MB
Video card (GPU)	SVGA video card that supports DirectDraw at 640 x 480 resolution, 256 colors	SVGA video card that supports DirectDraw at 640 x 480 resolution, 256 colors
Hard disk drive (HDD)	80 MB free	80 MB free

Mac
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.3.9	10.3.9
Processor (CPU)	PowerMac or Compatible	PowerMac or Compatible
System memory (RAM)	16 MB	32 MB
Video card (GPU)	Video card that supports 640x480 display in 256 colors	Video card that supports 640x480 display in 256 colors
Hard disk drive (HDD)	80 MB free	80 MB free