Possible Windows 7 crash fix

[GreatGodSajuuk]

I wanted Mesk to comment one of my replays and he pointed out to me that SC1 is apparently unstable on Win 7.
I was rather surprised as it had NEVER crashed on me, however it did crash on my friends comp. I was reading a topic about this on TL and people kept pointing out CPU affinity stuff but the others complained it's not effective and so on. Then I notice this guy blaming sound card drivers. Apparently the process audiodg.exe always starts up when you start any app that uses your sound and this process has been known to freak the fuck out at least on realtek based soundcard drivers. It likes to freak out when there's more than one program using the sound output. When it freaks out with SC1 running on the same core as the process and this is quite common, it will hard-lock the core and the system, requiring a reboot to unfreeze it.

Then it hit me. The main difference between me and my friend and most likely Mesk is that my friend and Mesk like to listen to other music while playing the game, I don't I just stick with the original stuff. Then i tried it myself, and i got a crash 15 minutes into the game.

Now the guy on TL recommended a driver downgrade to fix the assholery of audiodg.exe I tried it and so far it seems to have worked, played 3 games, all nearly an hour long with music playing in the background and no crashes yet.

So for those guys with realtek based soundcards I suggest you install these drivers:
http://www.mediafire.com/?65coe1s2c6l3v0f


For non-realtek guys I suggest trying to play the game with everything that could make any kind of sound either closed or muted, it should in theory work too.


I hope this helps.

[IskatuMesk]

doesn't hardlock for me. The game itself just CTD's or freezes for a tab to click a button to close.

[GreatGodSajuuk]

different card different drivers different results, you should still try to refrain from using nay software that opens up that process while playing sc1.

[GreatGodSajuuk]

Screw this. Get VMWare the menu glitches a bit but the game works perfectly fine, even battle net works.
Also you can now window it.

[Lavarinth]

You could also uninstall Windows Virtual PC and install Windows Virtual PC 2007 (an older version) which will allow you to full screen (unlike the one in Windows 7) and install Windows XP on it, or better yet, 98. I have Windows 98 in Virtual PC 2007 to play Dungeon Keeper 2 without any issues, it's such a relief, plus it supports Hamachi.

[GreatGodSajuuk]

well the only thing that vmware doesn't have from all that is a comfortable way to fullscreen stuff that runs on a low resolution.

[Lavarinth]

Indeed, neither did Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7, but Windows Virtual PC 2007 will act just like a game does when you full screen in terms of resolutions.