Windows configuration with MSYS2 and VS Code

Windows configuration with MSYS2 and VS Code

This guide will walk you through the necessary steps to compile the game on Windows. There's also an optional part to configure the VS Code editor in order to have autocompletion. I will assume you have a 64-bits version of Windows.

Download and install MSYS2

• Download MSYS2 here. Install it wherever you want (for example, I installed it in C:\Users\Olivier\tools\msys64).

• Run MSYS2 and install the following packages: mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc, mingw-w64-x86_64-make and mingw-w64-x86_64-sfml (note that the SFML version should be 2.5.1). You can do that with the following commands:

  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-make
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-sfml
  

• Add the mingw64\bin directory to your PATH (for example, I added C:\Users\Olivier\tools\msys64\mingw64\bin).

Downloand and install CMake

• Download CMake here. Take the version "Windows win64-x64 Installer".
• During the installation, check the option to add the CMake command to your PATH.
• To check that CMake is correctly installed, open a command prompt and type cmake --version.

Compiling

• Download OpMon source, and run CMake within the project directory:

  cmake . -G "MinGW Makefiles"
  

  Or, if you want a debug build:

  cmake . -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
  

• Run the following command to compile:

  cmake --build .
  

• Copy the GameData directory right next to the generated executable (so in OpMon/bin/release).

• You can now launch the game.

Configuring VS Code

This step is optionnal, but it will allow you to have autocompletion in VS Code.

• Install the C/C++ extension for VS Code here.
• In the OpMon project, create a .vscode directory (if it doesn't already exist) and create a file named c_cpp.properties.json in this directory (so it should look like OpMon\.vscode\c_cpp_properties.json).
• Here is an example c_cpp_properties.json. You should tweak this file according to your installation.

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "browse": {
                "path": [
                    "${workspaceRoot}",
                    "C:\\Users\\Olivier\\tools\\msys64\\mingw64\\include",
                    "C:\\Users\\Olivier\\tools\\msys64\\mingw64\\x86_64-w64-mingw32\\include"
                ]
            },
            "compilerPath": "C:\\Users\\Olivier\\tools\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\g++.exe",
            "cppStandard": "c++17",
            "cStandard": "c11",
            "includePath": [
                "${workspaceRoot}",
                "C:\\Users\\Olivier\\tools\\msys64\\mingw64\\include",
                "C:\\Users\\Olivier\\tools\\msys64\\mingw64\\x86_64-w64-mingw32\\include"
            ],
            "intelliSenseMode": "gcc-x64",
            "name": "OpMon",
            "compileCommands": "${workspaceFolder}/compile_commands.json"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}

IntelliSense mays give you the following warning: IntelliSense: PCH warning: cannot find a suitable header stop location. An intellisense PCH file was not generated. In that case, you can try to add the parameter "C_Cpp.intelliSenseCacheSize": 0 in VS Code settings.