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120 changes: 0 additions & 120 deletions Legacy Build System.md
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202 changes: 8 additions & 194 deletions README.md
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![ares logo](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/blob/master/ares/ares/resource/logo.png)
<img src="https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/blob/master/ares/ares/resource/logo@2x.png" width="350"/>

[![License: ISC](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-ISC-blue.svg)](https://github.com/higan-emu/ares/blob/master/LICENSE)

Expand All @@ -17,203 +17,17 @@ Nightly Builds
Automated, untested builds of ares are available for Windows and macOS as a [pre-release](https://github.com/higan-emu/ares/releases/tag/nightly).
Only the latest nightly build is kept.

Building
Building ares
-------------
> [!IMPORTANT]
> If you are reading this, this build system is still heavily under development. Documentation is incomplete, and it is possible that commands listed here will change or temporarily not function. Thank you for testing! Please feel free to tag @yam on the [ares Discord](https://discord.com/invite/gz2quhk2kv) with any issues.

Building ares requires [CMake](https://cmake.org/download/) 3.28 or greater.
Build instructions are available on the ares wiki. See build instructions for:

### Windows
* [Windows](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/wiki/Build-Instructions-For-Windows)
* [macOS](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/wiki/Build-Instructions-For-macOS)
* [Linux](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/wiki/Build-Instructions-For-Linux)
* [BSD](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/wiki/Build-Instructions-For-BSD)

ares on Windows can be built either via the default Windows shell, or within an MSYS2/MinGW environment.

#### Windows Command Prompt (MSVC/Clang-CL)

###### Prerequisites

* Windows 10 or higher
* CMake 3.28 or higher
* Git for Windows
* Visual Studio 17 2022

Ensure that the "Desktop Development with C++" package is included in your Visual Studio 2022 installation. Building ares with clang also requires that the "C++ Clang tools for Windows" package is installed.

###### Configuration

First, clone the ares repository:
```
git clone https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares
cd ares
```
A Visual Studio project can be setup by using the `windows` CMake preset:
```
cmake --preset windows
```
This preset will generate a Visual Studio project for ares using Clang-CL that will build all targets and package dependencies appropriately.

If you prefer to use the MSVC compiler, specify the `windows-msvc` preset:
```
cmake --preset windows-msvc
```
Visual Studio presets will generate single-architecture configuration with the host architecture will be created; if you would like to compile for a specific architecture, you may specify `-A x64` or `-A arm64` as appropriate. Multi-architecture configuration is not supported. 32-bit `x86` builds are not currently supported (*note 10/14: WIP, may work, just untested*).
#### MSYS2/MinGW

Under MSYS2/MinGW, the same Visual Studio CMake presets above are also supported. Under MSYS2/MinGW, we may also however build with GNU Clang or GCC.

###### Prerequisites

* MSYS2
* An appropriate MSYS2 [environment](https://www.msys2.org/docs/environments/), such as CLANG64
* A suitable MinGW toolchain, for example [mingw-w64-llvm](https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-llvm)
* Git (`pacman -S git`)
* CMake 3.28 or higher (`pacman -S cmake`)

First, clone the ares repository:
```
git clone https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares
cd ares
```
Then, invoke CMake as normal with your chosen generator, e.g Ninja:
```
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -G "Ninja Multi-Config"
```
After configuration, build ares:
```
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo
```
For further configuration options, see the [Build Options] section.
### macOS

###### Prerequisites

* macOS 10.15 or higher
* Xcode 12.4 or higher
* CMake 3.28 or higher

###### Configuration

First, clone the ares repository:
```
git clone https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares
cd ares
```
macOS builds can be setup by using the `macos` CMake preset:
```
cmake --preset macos
```
This generates an Xcode project in the `build_macos` folder that builds all `ares` targets including subprojects. By default, a single-architecture project with the host architecture is generated. To build universal binaries or cross-compile, the `-DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES="x86_64;arm64"` option can be specified in addition to the preset.

You may also build with other generators such as Make or Ninja. To do this, invoke CMake as normal:
```
mkdir my_build && cd my_build
cmake .. -G "GNU Makefiles"
```
After configuration, build ares:
```
make desktop-ui -j8
```
For further configuration options, see the [Build Options] section.

### Linux

###### Prerequisites

* Git
* CMake 3.28 or higher
* A compiler toolchain such as clang or gcc

ares requires development versions of the following packages in order to build:

* X11
* libGL
* GTK3 (gtk+-3.0)

Recommended development packages include:

* [librashader](https://software.opensuse.org//download.html?project=home%3Achyyran%3Alibrashader&package=librashader)
* SDL2

You may also configure with development packages for other audio drivers:

* OpenAL
* AO
* ALSA
* PulseAudio

Optional but recommended build tools include:

* Ninja
* clang
* Ccache

###### Configuration

First, clone the ares repository:
```
git clone https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares
cd ares
```
Building ares with `clang` and Ninja is recommended:
```
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -G "Ninja Multi-Config"
```
The generation step will report what features are enabled and disabled according to the libraries found on your system. Next, build ares:
```
cmake --build .
```
After building, products can be found in the `rundir` folder. ares can be run from this location, or the rundir can be relocated. ares can also be `install`ed:
```
cmake --install . --prefix <your install prefix>
```

### Build Options

When generating/configuring ares on any platform, a number of configuration options are available.

##### ARES_CORES
Default: `"a26;fc;sfc;sg;ms;md;ps1;pce;ng;msx;cv;myvision;gb;gba;ws;ngp;spec;n64"`

By default, ares configures with all emulator cores. To specify that only a subset of cores should be built, use the `-DARES_CORES` option. For example:
```
cmake .. -G Ninja -DARES_CORES="a26;n64;sg;myvision"
```

##### CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE
Default: `RelWithDebInfo`

Multi-configuration generators (Xcode, Visual Studio, Ninja Multi-Config) will automatically configure with all build configurations available. Single-configuration generators will configure by default using the `RelWithDebInfo` configuration. To specify another configuration, use `-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE`:

```
cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DARES_CORES="a26" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
```

Supported build types are `<Debug|Release|RelWithDebInfo|MinSizeRel>`.
##### ENABLE_CCACHE
Default: `ON`

ares will try to use CCache by default on all platforms to speed up compilation. You may disable CCache if you are experimenting with compilation options or the build system by building with `-DENABLE_CCACHE=OFF`.

##### ARES_BUILD_LOCAL
Default: `ON`

When this option is enabled, certain compiler optimizations are enabled to optimize performance for the host/target system. This option also controls certain entitlements and runtime options on macOS that interfere with may debugging but are necessary for notarization and distribution.

##### ARES\_ENABLE_LIBRASHADER
Default: `ON`

This flag may be disabled if you wish to compile without librashader and slang-shaders, producing a slimmer build. Note that the librashader header is still required to build without librashader; however, this header is bundled as a dependency on all platforms and it should not be necessary to install any dependency to build without librashader.

##### ARES_PROFILE_ACCURACY
Default: `OFF`

Mostly unused in current versions of ares; acts as a compile-time switch for certain performance-sensitive areas of emulation.

# Legacy build system

Legacy build information is available [here](./Legacy%20Build%20System.md)
For legacy Makefile build instructions, see [here](https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/wiki/Legacy-Build-Instructions).

Command-line options
--------------------
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33 changes: 32 additions & 1 deletion cmake/README.md
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Expand Up @@ -8,5 +8,36 @@ CMake code related to the actual generation and building of specific ares compon

Broadly, we try to conform to "modern CMake" best practices. There are plentiful resources on this subject; [An Introduction to Modern CMake](https://cliutils.gitlab.io/modern-cmake/README.html) is a good starting point. The primary philosophy behind these resources is that the build system code should be as modular and platform-agnostic as possible. Everything should be implemented as a target, and the build system's job is to describe and structure the relationships between these targets in a sound and logical way. `nall`'s Makefile this is not!

More in-depth documentation is available in separate documents. The most complicated part of this build system— the definition, resolution, and bundling of dependencies— is described in [Dependencies](./Dependencies.md).
### Structure

> [!NOTE]
> When discussing this build system, we will refer to all components of ares (`nall`, `ruby`, `hiro`, etc.) as targets. Dependencies such as SDL and librashader are also targets, as are all of ruby's drivers and backends, and the UI frontends.
Broadly, there are three main important components to ares's build system:

* The target-level build code that defines sources, compile options, and link relationships.
* The recursive dependency resolver
* The platform-specific helper functions that deal with these dependencies appropriately

Our target-level build code is the "meat and potatoes" of ares's build sytem. It defines all of the relationships between our targets; what depends on what; which sources are to be compiled; what definitions does the code need in order to compile successfully; what information does the linker need to link our targets together; etc.

The recursive dependency resolver and the platform helper functions, meanwhile, are the "secret sauce" responsible for turning this structured web of relationships into functional applications that we can actually run on our supported platforms.

Taking the main `desktop-ui` target, as an example, our target-level build code will handle things like:

* `desktop-ui` needs to be statically linked directly with `hiro`'s `hiro.a`, because `hiro.a` contains all of the functions needed to create the UI
* `hiro` itself also depends on specific libraries depending on its UI backend; add these to the linker command for `desktop-ui` so hiro can be linked correctly.
* We're linking against the `nall` target, which creates an interface compile definition for our platform; make sure `PLATFORM_MACOS` is defined in *all* of our targets since we're transitively linking against `nall`'!

The recursive dependency resolver and platform helper functions then take over to handle such problems as:

* `desktop-ui` ultimately depends on a dozen libraries; which of these are system libraries, and which need to be bundled along with the ares executable to create a function rundir or app bundle?
* `ares` depends on MoltenVK on macOS, but only if we're building the N64 core and if MoltenVK is available; only consider it if these conditions are met.
* The final products of the build on macOS, Windows and Linux have radically different directory structures; arrange the products appropriately depending on platform

Unfortunately, the only way to handle these problems effectively and correctly (considering all platforms) is to recursively crawl the entire tree of dependencies for our targets and consider for each one what the appropriate course is with our final build product in mind.

The complexity of this code means that it makes up a non-trivial portion of the build system. However, these parts are quite important, as they enable our target-level build code to be completely platform-agnostic and unconcerned with the details of packaging and bundle construction. If we need to bundle another library, it's a simple matter of defining it and linking it to the appropriate target, and the build system handles the rest.

> [!NOTE]
> This overview simplifies or omits certain CMake and platform implementation details to deliver a more concise overview of the build system. For the nitty-gritty of why all of this is actually necessary, see [Dependencies.md].

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