VVVVVV/desktop_version
Misa 5e25161a10 Add `/MT` flag for MSVC
This flag makes it so the MSVC runtime libraries are statically linked.
This avoids needing Windows users to have these libraries installed.

Apparently /MT stands for "MultiThreaded", and there's a bit of a
history there where originally by default you could only have a
single-threaded library, and then the multi-threaded flags were added in
later.

First I tried doing target_compile_options on VVVVVV, but then got a
linker error. Then I tried doing add_compile_options because I figured
/MT had to be applied everywhere, and it seemed to work, but it still
linked to the runtime libraries. Apparently it was being overridden.
Then I tried target_compile_options again but this time did it to
everything, and that linked correctly and also removed the runtime
dependency. I would've tried using the MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY property
- along with the CMP0091 policy - but those were only introduced in
CMake 3.15.

You can verify that a binary is built without dependencies by installing
LLVM and running llvm-readobj --needed-libs path/to/binary. This is the
output for a binary with runtime dependencies:

    infoteddy@fedorarune  ~/d  llvm-readobj --needed-libs VVVVVV.exe

    File: VVVVVV.exe
    Format: COFF-i386
    Arch: i386
    AddressSize: 32bit
    NeededLibraries [
      ADVAPI32.dll
      KERNEL32.dll
      MSVCP140.dll
      SDL2.dll
      SHELL32.dll
      USER32.dll
      VCRUNTIME140.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll
      api-ms-win-crt-utility-l1-1-0.dll
    ]

And this is the output for a binary with those dependencies having been
statically-linked in:

     infoteddy@fedorarune  ~/d  llvm-readobj --needed-libs VVVVVV.exe

    File: VVVVVV.exe
    Format: COFF-i386
    Arch: i386
    AddressSize: 32bit
    NeededLibraries [
      ADVAPI32.dll
      KERNEL32.dll
      SDL2.dll
      SHELL32.dll
      USER32.dll
    ]
2022-06-28 17:49:03 -07:00
..
src Add support for start position via level XML for CLI playtesting 2022-06-19 15:21:36 -07:00
.dockerignore Run CI on CentOS 7 (#574) 2021-01-11 00:30:15 -05:00
.gitignore Don't recompile all files when the commit hash is changed 2020-12-25 20:17:01 -05:00
CMakeLists.txt Add `/MT` flag for MSVC 2022-06-28 17:49:03 -07:00
CONTRIBUTORS.txt Add Yussur Mustafa Oraji (N00byKing) to contributors list 2022-02-14 12:34:07 -08:00
Dockerfile Update SDL version to 2.0.22 2022-04-25 13:09:57 -07:00
README.md Update SDL version to 2.0.22 2022-04-25 13:09:57 -07:00
fixupMac.sh Remove SDL2_mixer line from fixupMac.sh 2022-03-29 02:27:15 -04:00
icon.ico Updated .ico 2021-09-03 15:57:16 -04:00
icon.rc Embedded .ico 2021-08-28 11:21:49 -04:00
version.cmake Untabify every single file 2021-09-06 18:56:39 -07:00

README.md

How to Build

VVVVVV's official desktop versions are built with the following environments:

  • Windows: Visual Studio 2010
  • macOS: Xcode CLT, currently targeting 10.9 SDK
  • GNU/Linux: CentOS 7

The engine depends solely on SDL2 2.0.22+. All other dependencies are statically linked into the engine. The development libraries for Windows can be downloaded from SDL's website, Linux developers can find the dev libraries from their respective repositories, and macOS developers should compile and install from source. (If you're on Ubuntu and your Ubuntu is too old to have this SDL version, then see here for workarounds.)

Steamworks support is included and the DLL is loaded dynamically, you do not need the SDK headers and there is no special Steam or non-Steam version. The current implementation has been tested with Steamworks SDK v1.46.

To generate the projects on Windows:

# Put your SDL2 folders somewhere nice!
mkdir flibitBuild
cd flibitBuild
cmake -A Win32 -G "Visual Studio 10 2010" .. -DSDL2_INCLUDE_DIRS="C:\SDL2-2.0.22\include" -DSDL2_LIBRARIES="C:\SDL2-2.0.22\lib\x86\SDL2;C:\SDL2-2.0.22\lib\x86\SDL2main"

Note that on some systems, the SDL2_LIBRARIES list on Windows may need SDL2/SDL2main to have .lib at the end of them. The reason for this inconsistency is unknown.

Also note that if you're using a Visual Studio later than 2010, you will need to change the -G string accordingly; otherwise you will get a weird cryptic error. Refer to the list below:

  • VS 2012: "Visual Studio 11 2012"
  • VS 2013: "Visual Studio 12 2013"
  • VS 2015: "Visual Studio 14 2015"
  • VS 2017: "Visual Studio 15 2017"
  • VS 2019: "Visual Studio 16 2019"
  • VS 2022: "Visual Studio 17 2022"

To generate everywhere else:

mkdir flibitBuild
cd flibitBuild
cmake ..

macOS may be fussy about the SDK version. How to fix this is up to the whims of however Apple wants to make CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT annoying to configure and retain each time Xcode updates.

Including data.zip

You'll need the data.zip file from VVVVVV to actually run the game! It's available to download separately for free in the Make and Play edition of the game. Put this file next to your executable and the game should run.

This is intended for personal use only - our license doesn't allow you to actually distribute this data.zip file with your own forks without getting permission from us first. See LICENSE.md for more details. (If you've got a project in mind that requires distributing this file, get in touch!)

A Word About Compiler Quirks

(Note: This section only applies to version 2.2 of the source code, which is the initial commit of this repository. Since then, much hard work has been put in to fix many undefined behaviors. If you're compiling the latest version of the source code, ignore this section.)

This engine is super fussy about optimization levels and runtime checks. In particular, the Windows version absolutely positively must be compiled in Debug mode, with /RTC enabled. If you build in Release mode, or have /RTC disabled, the game behaves dramatically different in ways that were never fully documented (bizarre softlocks, out-of-bounds issues that don't show up in tools like Valgrind, stuff like that). There are lots of things about this old code that could be cleaned up, polished, rewritten, and so on, but this is the one that will probably bite you the hardest when setting up your own build, regardless of platform.

We hope you'll enjoy messing with the source anyway!

Love, flibit