Key points
- Both StarCraft and its expansion, Brood War, were made free on April 18, 2017 on the Blizzard launcher, along with a new patch that improves compatibility with modern OS, windowed and windowed-fullscreen modes, network, and more.
- StarCraft: Remastered is DLC for the above version of the game, which adds enhanced dialogue, audio, and 4K-quality graphics. It is not required for multiplayer.[1]
General information
- StarCraft Compendium
- Battle.net Forums
Availability
Source |
DRM |
Notes |
Keys |
OS |
Retail |
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Installers for both Windows and Mac OS are on the CD. Later copies (post-2003) also include an OS X installer. |
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Battle.net |
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Free; includes both StarCraft and its expansion, Brood War. Can be launched without logging in to battle.net by using the -launch command line argument.[2] You still need to log in to install. |
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DLC and expansion packs
Name |
Notes |
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StarCraft: Brood War |
Included with the StarCraft Anthology and StarCraft Battle Chest. Now freely available with any version of the game registered to the Blizzard launcher. |
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StarCraft: Remastered |
Adds enhanced dialogue, audio, and 4K-quality widescreen graphics. |
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StarCraft: Cartooned |
A texture pack that gives the game a cartoon look. Requires StarCraft: Remastered. |
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Version differences
StarCraft Anthology (Battle.net Digital Download)
- The classic game that is free as of version 1.18, released on April 18, 2017.[3] Includes both the base game StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion.
- Download from here.
StarCraft Battle Chest
- A physical release which contains both StarCraft and Brood War, along with the official strategy guides for both games.
Essential improvements
Retail Patches
- The most up-to-date standalone installer version for the retail release is 1.17.0.
Install the Stacraft patch only if Brood War is not installed.
Mods
- The ChaosLauncher allows older versions of StarCraft to be run in a Windowed Mode along with some other features.
- This is obsoleted by the free-to-play and Remastered versions.
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
System |
Location |
Windows |
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Starcraft\CSettings.json |
macOS (OS X) |
~/Library/Application Support/Blizzard/StarCraft/CSettings.json |
Save game data location
System |
Location |
Windows |
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Starcraft\Characters\<user-id> |
macOS (OS X) |
~/Library/Application Support/Blizzard/StarCraft/Characters/<user-id> |
Video
- This hack may not be compatible with the latest versions of StarCraft and Brood War, and is also unnecessary as of the latest patch --Sagacity159 (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2018 (UTC).
- DO NOT play on Battle.Net while using this hack. You might get banned.
- The single-player portion of the game has been reported to have some bugs when running this solution: Sometimes in the campaign the camera gets stuck and won't scroll anymore. The problem is fixable in this updated version of the Resolution Expander by shifting to 640x480 and then back to the resolution you were in. Some users have reported that the crash that occurs as you complete a level in the campaign is still there. This crash can be fixed by moving the StarCraft folder out of C:/ drive.
Widescreen[4]
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- Download Resolution Expander 6 and extract anywhere you want.
- Edit
ResSettings.ini .
- Change these lines to the desired resolution.
ScreenWidth0=640
ScreenHight0=480
- After setting your resolution, run
InsectLoader.exe as administrator to play StarCraft with the hack.
- If you get an error message that StarCraft isn't installed properly, do the following.
- Go to where
StarCraft.exe is located.
- Create a file called
scfix.vbs and paste the following text into it.
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"))
- Double-click it. InsectLoader should agree the game is installed properly.
- If you are using a 64-bit 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"))
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Input
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
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Surround sound |
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Subtitles |
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Closed captions |
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Mute on focus lost |
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Changing the language through the Blizzard App. The download is approximately 250 MB to 325 MB for each language.
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
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All cinematic scenes are in English and subtitled to their respective language. Subtitles in cinematic scenes can be turned on/off. |
Simplified Chinese |
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Traditional Chinese |
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Japanese |
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Korean |
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Polish |
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Brazilian Portuguese |
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Russian |
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Spanish |
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French |
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German |
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Hungarian |
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Fan-made localization, supports 1.17, http://huncraft.hu/starcraft |
Italian |
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Ukrainian |
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Fan translation and full dubbing by TSF, download. |
Network
Multiplayer types
Type |
Native |
Players |
Notes |
LAN play |
| 8 |
Also supports 4 observers. |
Online play |
| 8 |
Also supports 4 observers. |
Connection types
Ports
Protocol |
Port(s) and/or port range(s) |
TCP |
6112 |
UDP |
6112 |
- Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.
Issues fixed
Corrupt graphics on Windows 7
- See Palette Issue.
- Fixed with version 1.18.
Crash in Zerg mission 8 during in-game dialogue
- You will have to disable audio temporarily.
No sounds on Windows 10
- Fixed with patch 1.18.
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
Direct3D |
9 |
Windows platforms only. |
DirectDraw |
2 |
In Windows version prior to version 1.18 |
OpenGL |
2.1 |
1.18 and above OpenGL is used.[5] |
Metal support |
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Since 2 July 2020 with patch 1.23.5 |
Executable | PPC | 16-bit |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows | | |
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The 64-bit version is available through the Blizzard launcher. |
macOS (OS X) | | | |
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An OS X patch arrived in November 2001, but only for PowerPC processors. They continued until 2007 for both OSes, gaining a universal binary at 1.16. Support for PowerPC processors and Mac OS was dropped shortly after.
64-bit Intel required a source port until 1.23, which did add 64-bit Intel support but jumped to 10.10 as the minimum OS. |
Linux | | | |
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Requires a source port. |
Mac OS (Classic) | | | |
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Middleware
Source ports
Name |
Description |
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Stargus |
- Alternative open-source engine.
- Aims to improve stability and availability on other platforms such as OS X and Linux.
- StarCraft support is in beta, can be unstable.
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System requirements
Base game
Windows | Mac OS (Classic) | macOS (OS X) |
Windows |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
95 (Only inclusive until patch 1.16.1. Patch 1.17+ Needs XP and greater.) | |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Pentium 90 MHz | |
System memory (RAM) |
16 MB |
32 MB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
80 MB | |
Video card (GPU) |
SVGA video card that supports DirectDraw at 640x480 resolution, 256 colors DirectX 2.0 compatible | |
Mac OS |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
7.6 |
9.2.2 |
Processor (CPU) |
PowerPC 120 MHz | |
System memory (RAM) |
16 MB |
32 MB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
80 MB | |
Video card (GPU) |
640x480 display in 256 colors | |
For Remastered DLC
Windows |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
7, 8 |
10 64-bit |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Pentium D AMD Athlon 64 X2 |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ |
System memory (RAM) |
2 GB |
4 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
8 GB |
8 GB |
Video card (GPU) |
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 256 MB of VRAM
| NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT ATI Radeon HD 4850 (512 MB) of VRAM |
Other |
1024 x 768 minimum display resolution |
The "Real-Time Lighting" option requires a graphics card with more than 2.2 GB of VRAM. |
Mac OS |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
10.10 |
10.13 |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Core 2 Duo
| Intel Core i3 |
System memory (RAM) |
2 GB |
4 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
8 GB |
8 GB |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
| Nvidia GeForce GT 650M ATI Radeon HD 5670 |
Other |
1024 x 768 minimum display resolution |
The "Real-Time Lighting" option requires a graphics card with more than 2.2 GB of VRAM. |
References