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README-msys2.md

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Using ngdevkit natively on the Windows platform

The ngdevkit toolchain can be compiled natively and used as any other Windows executable by means of the MSYS2 environment. MSYS2 is the minimal POSIX-like environment that makes the building of ngdevkit feasible on the Windows platform.

Once built, the resulting binaries are fully Native Windows binaries that do not have any runtime dependencies on MSYS2. For example, the GnGeo emulator does not depend on MSYS2 to be run. However, the MSYS2 environment itself is still super useful as a development environment, for instance to build the example ROMs.

Prepare your environment for compilation

Install MSYS2

To build ngdevkit, we rely on MSYS2 to provide the necessary C development tools and generate native Windows executables.

Download the MSYS2 installer and install the MSYS2 environment locally. For the sake of the example this document assumes that you installed it in the default location:

C:\msys64

MSYS2 has many different environments, among which:

  • The MSYS environment, which contains all the base UNIX-like tools under /usr and is special in that it is always active.
  • The UCRT64 environment, which builds on top of the MSYS environment and provides only Windows-native binaries under /ucrt64/bin

Ngdevkit is built for Windows with no MSYS2/Unix dependencies in mind, so it targets the UCRT64. In order to compile it successfully, you must be running a shell under the UCRT64 environment. You can start the shell by running "MSYS2 UCRT64" from the Start menu. Alternatively, you can also start the shell from cmd.exe or from PowerShell with:

set MSYSTEM=UCRT64
C:\msys64\usr\bin\bash.exe -l

Once you are in a MSYS2 shell, make sure your MSYS2 installation is up-to-date and pacboy is available:

pacman -Syuu
pacman -S pactoys
pacboy -S msys2-w32api-runtime
exit

Package msys2-w32api-runtime sometimes requires you to restart your shell after installation/upgrade, so it's easier to do it all the time and restart a new one from there.

Compiling the devkit

In a new shell running in the UCRT64 environment, first install all the ngdevkit dependencies:

pacboy -S msys2-w32api-runtime windows-default-manifest
pacboy -S msys2-runtime-devel msys2-w32api-headers
pacboy -S autoconf autoconf-archive automake pkgconf make tar zip unzip
pacboy -S git flex bison expat gettext ncurses-devel zlib-devel
pacboy -S gmp-devel isl-devel mpc-devel mpfr-devel texinfo
pacboy -S python:u python-pygame:u toolchain:u zlib:u SDL2:u glew:u boost:u
# dependencies for the example ROMs
pacboy -S rsync sox:u imagemagick:u

You can now compile the entire devkit. The latest ngdevkit's autoconf script should detect the location of all dependencies (python, pygame...) automatically, as long as you're running it in a UCRT64 environment as required.

autoreconf -iv
./configure --prefix=$PWD/local
make
make install

The most tedious part is over! You can now configure your environment to add the built binaries to your PATH and start experimenting with the devkit and build the example ROMs:

eval $(make shellinit)
cd examples
# build the example ROMs (make sure you're still in a UCRT64 shell)
./configure
make

Look at the main README file for more details on how to run the examples and the debugger.