Prepackaged MinGW-w64 + Git RetroArch development environment

General Development
#1

Compiled a .zip yesterday with what you need to build RetroArch from source. Should help out people who can’t wait for new binaries, and have never compiled from source before. Includes latest Win64 GCC toolchain from MinGW-w64 project (rubenvb 4.8.0), and latest release of Git for Windows (git-bash). Hopefully it’ll “just work” for you. No installation required, and should run from a memory stick.

New toolchain (2013-09-14) I’ve uploaded a new toolchain: http://themaister.net/retroarch-dl/MinGW-win64-RetroArch-dev-winpthread.7z (~91MB) I’ve bundled this toolchain: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win64/Personal%20Builds/mingw-builds/4.8.1/threads-posix/sjlj/. Otherwise, it’s mostly unchanged.

Important things to note:

  • It uses POSIX thread model. If you distribute builds made with this, make sure you use the latest RetroArch redist (v6), or people will get errors with libwinpthread-1.dll missing.
  • I’ve bundled static zlib now. Should make compiling certain cores a lot simpler.
  • wget is bundled, you can now download the redist directly when building RetroArch.

Building RetroArch from scratch is now:

  • Start shell
  • git clone git://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch.git
  • cd RetroArch
  • make -f Makefile.win libs_x86_64 # This will download redist and extract it automatically
  • make -f Makefile.win -j4
  • You should see lots of CC <file>, and LD retroarch.exe at the end with no errors.

Otherwise, see below.

I noticed you had to use CC=gcc CXX=g++ ./libretro-build.sh in libretro-super. This might have been the case before. I usually just cross-compile in Linux.

Old toolchain Link: https://anonfiles.com/file/34f8b1a8c0f078d220c0bd89ea21b03c (~65MB) EDIT: New link.

Start the shell by running Git bash.vbs in top folder. You should be able to clone RetroArch repo and follow this compilation guide: https://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch/wiki/Compilation-guide-(Windows)

If you have never done any compilation before: Step by step (first time):

  • Start shell
  • git clone git://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch.git
  • You’ll need to download headers and libs as described in compilation guide and extract them to the cloned RetroArch folder.
  • cd RetroArch
  • make -f Makefile.win -j4
  • You should see lots of CC <file>, and LD retroarch.exe at the end with no errors.

If you have already cloned (to update RetroArch):

  • Start shell
  • cd RetroArch
  • git pull
  • make -f Makefile.win clean
  • make -f Makefile.win -j4

To build Phoenix:

  • Start shell
  • cd RetroArch-Phoenix
  • git clone git://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch-Phoenix.git
  • cd RetroArch-Phoenix
  • make clean
  • make

To update Phoenix, similar procedure as RetroArch.

#2

Already have a similar compiling environment myself, but this is great nonetheless. Although my issue has historically been with compiling the various cores from source. I can only get a few to compile without issues.

#3

Sweet. Thanks to this, I was able to compile RetroArch on Windows for the first time (in the past, I always had to cross-compile in Linux) :slight_smile:

If anyone wants 64-bit binaries for the latest shader/cgp goodies, you can download mine here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/Emulation/RetroArch/retroarch-git-Apr16-2013.zip

#4

Sounds like it’s new, but CGP is actually really old (1-2 years?) old by now. :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Thank you so much for compiling this! This build solves my .zip file usage from retroarch.exe.

#6

@Rahabib No problem. Glad it helped :slight_smile:

#7

Please, is it possible to get the last versions of RetroArch and RetroArch Phoenix (Windows, 32-bit binaries)? I am not able to compile it.

Thank you.

redball

#8

Maister -

some idiot ‘Cease and desisted’ that link (don’t ask me why).

Could you please upload this to anonfiles.com instead?

#9

Stickied this.

Maister - please reupload this to anonfiles.com - the files got taken down.

#10

I still had a copy of the pristine bundle, so I uploaded it (recompressed to 7z; Anonfiles was choking on the regular zip version for whatever reason): https://anonfiles.com/file/8ad402164bc89b3ac8153f3427c6a4ec

#11

Already updated the link. Forgot to reply here though :v Had to use 7z as well. Stripped the size from 200MB to 65-ish though. Impressive.

#12

Seems there is one dependency missing from this package:

Tosca@ZZZ /c/local-repos/RetroArch (master) $ ./configure Checking operating system … MinGW Checking for suitable working C compiler … /mingw64/bin/gcc Checking for suitable working C++ compiler … /mingw64/bin/g++ Checking for availability of switch -std=gnu99 in /mingw64/bin/gcc … yes Checking for availability of switch -Wno-unused-result in /mingw64/bin/gcc … y es Checking for availability of switch -Wno-unused-variable in /mingw64/bin/gcc … yes Checking function bcm_host_init in -lbcm_host … no pkg-config not found. Exiting … Tosca@ZZZ /c/local-repos/RetroArch (master)

#13

Windows builds are built with Makefile.win, not ./configure, Makefile. https://github.com/Themaister/RetroArch/wiki/Compilation-guide-(Windows)

#14

Is this tutorial only for windows RetroArch.

I followed the guide and used makefile.ngc in an attempt to compile a GameCube version but no joy.

#15

I can’t build separate libretro cores with this due to missing zlib dependency.

It would be nice if that came as preinstalled/preconfigured. Same with prepackaging the GL includes.

#16

Wish we had a prepackaged one for 32-bit Windows build systems. :wink: I tried to set it up here, but kept getting errors. Oh, well.

Also, my RetroArch git clone folder kept pulling into my windows user directory, then into my windows32 folder. Weird. :stuck_out_tongue:

#17

I can’t download the headers from the comp guide, I am getting a 404. Is there a mirror?

edit found them on http://themaister.net/retroarch-dl/ you can find them towards the top

also the upstream has changed so anyone following this guide be sure to clone git://github.com/libretro/RetroArch.git or you might not get the latest version

now that that’s settled is there a simple way to compile libretro-super for windows? I’ll try to figure it out but if somebody already knows that’d be helpful

#18

I have managed to fetch all of the super sources and am ready to build but I can’t seem to figure out which dependencies I am missing. I will keep looking into it. Sqaurepusher, you mentioned something about missing zlib dependencies. Please elaborate if you would.

#19

You’ll definitely need this (the zlib dependency): http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/zlib-bin-zip.php

And you may need a few more, depending on which core(s) you’re compiling. Until you get the dependencies nailed down, I would recommend compiling the cores individually (you can look at the libretro-super build script for clues on how each individual core is compiled, though generally, it’s either just ‘make’ or ‘make -f Makefile.libretro’ or something similar), since they will give you informative errors as to which dependencies they are missing.

#20

thanks a lot. That is essentially what I have been doing so far. If I can get good at this I wouldn’t mind helping to compile for future releases if the help is needed.