I've been out of the Starcraft loop for a bit, but I've recently gotten a new system and decided to get back into it a bit. Still running Windows 7 64bit as Windows 10 is a bit out of my expenses atm.

I've been using Farty's Starcraft Classic Installer reliably, however I've run into a huge graphical issue. I know Starcraft and Win7 do not get along but I'd rather be dealing with the magenta and cyan color glitches than this.

Starcraft is being rendered in an incomprehensible black and white mess. Graphics, UI, everything. I can't take a screenshot to show what it looks like because for some reason screenshots look perfectly fine. In game though it looks like static. Here's what I've tried so far all which haven't worked -

-Reinstalling Starcraft, trying different patches and resetting the registry/install path.
-Running as admin.
-Running in compat mode for Windows XP SP1/SP2, Windows 95/98, Windows Vista SP1/SP2.
-Running in 256 colors, 640x480, disabled desktop elements/composition.
-Running with the Resolution/Personalize window open.
-Killing explorer.exe.
-Allowing Starcraft.exe through firewall/antivirus.
-Applying the 64bit registry fix.
-Verifying DirectDraw acceleration is enabled in dxdiag.
-Setting all Nvidia settings for Starcraft to off/letting the application decide.
-Updating/Clean installing video card drivers.

I've been troubleshooting for days and I'm a bit at my wits end. I'm becoming less convinced that it's Windows 7 and more convinced that it may be a video card/monitor issue.
Specs:
Windows 7 64bit
GTX 750 Ti SC

EDIT: I successfully got it working with Niev's chainwmode exe, I just had to have all the exes in separate folders for it to work.

(Sorry if this is in the wrong spot, wasn't sure if this belonged in General Starcraft or Technology & Computers)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 11 2021, 8:01 pm by Pandut.

I haven't encountered this issue on Win 7 with StarCraft, but I have seen it with other legacy applications.

If you run it using a mod or launcher that supports windowed mode, does it render properly?

What kind of screenshot?
Using the game engine (could logically not show anything useful) and converting the pcx to png?
Using Print Screen in default/fullscreen game, then alt-tabbing and pasting in a drawing software?
Using Print Screen in windowed mode, and the result (after cropping the desktop out of the picture) is what you posted?

The weirdest would be the last one. If you got a good screenshot like that, then I can only think of a screen bug.
Then again, if it was a screen bug, why would you know the screenshot work afterward.
Weird.

If you go in Control Panel > Device Manager and disable the display adapter, does the issue go away?

I don't have an onboard graphics card, my GTX 750 is the only thing shown under display adapter so I'm a bit hesitant to disable it.
Print screen on full screen, pcx opened in photoshop then converted to png. I just now (only occurred to me just now lol) took 2 screenshots just using print screen and pasting into photoshop, each one was just solid black with a few white speckles. Pretty used to that on previous Win7 builds with pasting and game engine shots alike so it was off to me that the first one was fine.
I just tried with Niev's chainwmode, it worked the first time I launched it. Everything rendered normally, but closing it and trying to launch it again yields a "Something is tampering with the loader process" error. Even with Admin and Firewall access enabled. I don't have an active antivirus that could be blocking it. It's in my Starcraft directory as are the WMode dlls. There's also no renegade instances of Starcraft running. EDIT: Error persists even after reboots.

EDIT2: OKAY I got it to work! Turns out I can't have the chainwmode.exe in my Starcraft directory nor in the same folder as my mods. If they're all separated it works fine.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Mar 11 2021, 8:00 pm by Pandut.