VOGONS


First post, by torindkflt

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Saw this on Slashdot, figured it would be worth posting here since it's one of the more popular late-90s PC games. Blizzard has officially reclassified the original Starcraft and the Brood War expansion pack as freeware, supposedly to help build hype for the upcoming "remastered" version. It's been updated to work better on Win7-10...but I'd be curious to know if this updated version still runs on Win9x. 🤣

Info & download links: https://starcraft.com/en-us/articles/20674424

Reply 2 of 20, by mr_bigmouth_502

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The new patch has changed quite a few things, in order to improve compatibility with newer operating systems. It's kinda sad to see since it means it'll be harder to run on older machines, but I still have my old copy of 1.16 kicking around somewhere.

Reply 4 of 20, by gerwin

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I just tried patch 1.18 on Windows XP system with HD6450 graphics; The patch is actually a full game downloader. Installation goes fine, but afterwards the game executable throws a fatal 'unexpected error' whenever I try to launch it. The editor works. This is with both the test release exe V1.18.0.1314 and the current v1.18.0.1345.
Installed size is 2,76 GB.
Inside the game folder is a small manual which still lists the system requirements as: "Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista"
When I throw in the old v1.16.1 exe with storm.dll and some .snp files the game works again.

Here I read this though: "The Remastered version will play Campaign or LAN on XP"

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 5 of 20, by gca

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I just started trying to get the new version running myself. On my Compaq (Win10) it just dies instantly moaning about OpenGL initialisation (a common problem for the Intel Mobility 4 chipset if forum posts are anything to go by) however the original 1.16 works without any problems. On my Win7 box (Lenovo G575) the new version appears to be running just fine.

Would be nice if they made it a downloadable off-line installer rather than having to suck everything down from the web if you are trying to get it going on multiple boxes.

Reply 6 of 20, by Jorpho

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When news of this first started spreading at the end of March, I was directed to a link on the official Blizzard forums to some kind of PTR version. I now have something called "Starcraft+1.18+PTR+1202.zip" which is 1.54 GB in size. I'm not sure if that's still available anywhere; it looks like they were hosting it temporarily on Cloudfront at the time.

Reply 7 of 20, by gerwin

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Yes, that is the older test release V1.18.0.1314. I managed to pull that one from the internet yesterday (but it doesn't work for me either.).

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 8 of 20, by Jorpho

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To be clear, if I install that release, will it automatically update on its own to the latest version? (I presume whatever changes exist between that release and the final are relatively minor.)

Reply 9 of 20, by gerwin

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Every time I use the "StarCraft Public Test Launcher.exe" it says update available, and starts updating. But exe remains v1.18.0.1314?

Also, the test release file I initially downloaded was just 3MB and it downloaded and installed this v1.18.0.1314 game by itself. Regardless of a newer release being available.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 10 of 20, by Azarien

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Does it work for anyone? I tried in two different locations but it cannot download anything.
Country lock, maybe?

EDIT: never mind, I deleted c:\ProgramData\Battle.net folder which contained some old files from 2014 and it started downloading now.

Reply 11 of 20, by Azarien

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F2bnp wrote:

Probably won't work as its using OpenGL (and probably a much newer version than whatever is available for Win9x 😁).

It's not a 3d game so it doesn't really need anything more than OpenGL 1.x for simply displaying the framebuffer, but sadly it won't run on my laptop with Intel graphics and OpenGL 2.1.
Works fine on a HD5770 with OpenGL 4.4 or 4.5.

Reply 12 of 20, by DosFreak

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Wonder how well it would work with Mesa3D, might be a way to run it on those systems.

Mesa3D no go.

Took a look with glintercept and it looks like the shaders are v330 GLSL
https://www.khronos.org/opengl/wiki/Core_And_ … ity_in_Contexts
https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/s … /000005524.html

Looks to me like the game wasn't tested very thoroughly.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/top … 3826546#post-19

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Reply 13 of 20, by Azarien

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DosFreak wrote:

Took a look with glintercept and it looks like the shaders are v330 GLSL

Looks to me like the game wasn't tested very thoroughly.

Yeah, it seems they happily used whatever was available on their dev machines, without thinking how high they're raising the hardware requirements of a *1998* game.

Reply 14 of 20, by DosFreak

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Possible solution
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/com … hout_opengl_45/

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 16 of 20, by leileilol

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Azarien wrote:

Yeah, it seems they happily used whatever was available on their dev machines, without thinking how high they're raising the hardware requirements of a *1998* game.

So like modern source ports for old games then 😁 (especially the ones that insist on using VS201X for some damned standards and "free" reason)

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long live PCem

Reply 17 of 20, by Azarien

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leileilol wrote:
Azarien wrote:

Yeah, it seems they happily used whatever was available on their dev machines, without thinking how high they're raising the hardware requirements of a *1998* game.

So like modern source ports for old games then 😁 (especially the ones that insist on using VS201X for some damned standards and "free" reason)

Well, if you're C++ Windows dev then you most probably already have a recent VS version installed, and use just that.
But you can still target Windows XP with VS2017.

Reply 18 of 20, by 95DosBox

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gerwin wrote:

StarCraft Version 1.18.7.1709 works in windows XP. (The Battle.net part does not, as was foretold)

I think it's a shame they are blaming lack of XP users to stop supporting them on Battle.Net. If anything they should have updated Warcraft 1 and 2 and made it free and worked on an HD version of both. I don't see the reason they went with Starcraft first. Anyhow I downloaded the entire program and zipped it in case one day they no longer offer it for free. I still prefer my original SC and BW CDs but just in case this free one can be played offline on XP. 😀