Windows build instructions

[valina354]

im very confused

[evmar]

https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32/blob/main/HACKING.md shows the command line to run an exe, is that what you are looking for?

[valina354]

https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32/blob/main/HACKING.md shows the command line to run an exe, is that what you are looking for?

ok, How do i compile retrowin32? it sounds like cool project and i wanna try adding new api calls and running random exes, since compile is very different compared to other software that uses cmake and such, im on windows and the build guide is very confusing

[evmar]

That file I linked has build instructions, can you tell me what you tried?

[valina354]

That file I linked has build instructions, can you tell me what you tried?

im confused related to SDL theres no instructions for windows

[evmar]

Ah, I'm not exactly sure what you'd need to do on Windows. If you look in to it, please let me know!

[valina354]

Ah, I'm not exactly sure what you'd need to do on Windows. If you look in to it, please let me know!

Do i have to run in a linux vm or something then? i really wanna mess with this as it sounds like fun project

[valina354]

i was actually able to get it working using WSL so i guess fixed

[evmar]

Oh great! Let me know if you have any questions! Also, getting it work on native Windows probably isn't too hard, I just have no real reason to do it (because you can just run Windows apps directly after all)

[valina354]

Oh great! Let me know if you have any questions! Also, getting it work on native Windows probably isn't too hard, I just have no real reason to do it (because you can just run Windows apps directly after all)

makes sense, do you know if theres any C compiler that can generate exes that will work in retrowin32? i used msvc but it makes SIMD assembly which cant run in retrowin32 as far as i see

[evmar]

I have some docs and programs here: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32/tree/main/exe

I support some SIMD, but only SSE, and modern compilers generate SSE2 (edit: was wrong, it's MMX that is supported). High level, the trick I've used is to target i586 specifically (not i686) to avoid SSE. I'm not opposed to implementing SSE but it's a lot of work and none of the exes I've looked at need it.

I have built exes a few ways:

1. Using the Rust toolchain. See programs in exe/rust/src/bin, like cmdline.rs is a good example . This is a little annoying because the Rust standard library is precompiled as i686, so you have to build without the standard library.
2. Using clang-cl, which is the clang toolchain preconfigured to work like MSVC. See exe/winapi/ for the example, there's a build command in there. The exe/README talks about the flags used. I think you could use similar flags with the real MSVC cl.exe compiler, but I haven't tried it and I'm not sure how to configure it to target i586 or disable SSE2 or whatever you need.
3. Using the Zig toolchain, I got this working like a year ago and it probably doesn't work anymore, but if you're into Zig you could dig into the Zig programs in there.

[valina354]

I have some docs and programs here: https://github.com/evmar/retrowin32/tree/main/exe

I support some SIMD, but only SSE, and modern compilers generate SSE2. High level, the trick I've used is to target i586 specifically (not i686) to avoid SSE2. I'm not opposed to implementing SSE2 but it's a lot of work and none of the exes I've looked at need it.

I have built exes a few ways:

1. Using the Rust toolchain. See programs in exe/rust/src/bin, like cmdline.rs is a good example . This is a little annoying because the Rust standard library is precompiled as i686, so you have to build without the standard library.
2. Using clang-cl, which is the clang toolchain preconfigured to work like MSVC. See exe/winapi/ for the example, there's a build command in there. The exe/README talks about the flags used. I think you could use similar flags with the real MSVC cl.exe compiler, but I haven't tried it and I'm not sure how to configure it to target i586 or disable SSE2 or whatever you need.
3. Using the Zig toolchain, I got this working like a year ago and it probably doesn't work anymore, but if you're into Zig you could dig into the Zig programs in there.

makes sense, i usually use msvc to compile exes to be fastest, but even after disabling many stuff it still makes sse2 code for some reason (altho my program is hello world so theres nothing i can see why it would use)

[evmar]

Looks like there's a flag that might control this:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/arch-x86?view=msvc-170