2 Using SDL under Windows with the OpenWatcom compiler
3 ====================================================
5 Last updated on June 26, 2006.
11 I have done the port under Windows XP Home with SP2 installed. Windows
12 2000 should also be working. I'm not so sure about ancient Windows NT,
13 since only DirectX 3 is available there. Building should be possible,
14 but running the compiled applications will probalbly fail with
15 SDL_VIDEODRIVER=directx. The windib driver should work, though.
17 To compile and use the SDL with Open Watcom you will need the following:
18 - Open Watcom compiler. I used version 1.5. The environment variables
19 PATH, WATCOM and INCLUDE need to be set appropriately - please consult
20 the OpenWatcom documentation and instructions given during the
21 installation of the compiler.
22 My setup looks like this in owvars.bat:
24 set INCLUDE=%WATCOM%\h;%WATCOM%\h\nt
25 set PATH=%PATH%;%WATCOM%\binnt;%WATCOM%\binw
26 - A fairly recent DirectX SDK. The original unmodified DX8 SDK works, as
27 well as the minimal DirectX 7 SDK from the Allegro download site
28 (<http://alleg.sourceforge.net/files/dx70_min.zip>).
29 - The SDL sources from Subversion
30 - The file Watcom-Win32.zip (now available in Subversion)
36 1) In the SDL base directory extract the archive Watcom-Win32.zip. This
37 creates a subdirectory named 'watcom'.
38 2) The makefile expects the environment variable DXDIR to be set to the
39 base directory of a DirectX SDK. I have tried a stock DX8 SDK from
40 Microsoft as well as the minimal DirectX 7 SDK from the Allegro
42 You can also edit the makefile directly and hard code your path to
43 the SDK on your system.
44 I have this in my setup:
45 set DXDIR=D:\devel\DX8_SDK
46 3) Enter the watcom directory and run
48 4) All tests from the test directory are working and can be built by
54 The makefile offers some options to tweak the way the library is built.
55 You have at your disposal the option to build a static (default)
56 library, or a DLL (with tgt=dll). You can also choose whether to build
57 a Release (default) or a Debug version (with build=debug) of the tests
58 and library. Please consult the usage comment at the top of the
59 makefile for usage instructions.
61 If you specify a test target (i.e. 'wmake tests' for all tests, or
62 selected targets like 'wmake testgl testvidinfo testoverlay2'), the
63 tests are always freshly compiled and linked. This is done to
64 minimise hassle when switching between library versions (static vs.
65 DLL), because they require subtly different options.
66 Also, the test executables are put directly into the test directory,
67 so they can find their data files. The clean target of the makefile
68 removes the test executables and the SDL.dll file from the test
71 To use the library in your own projects with Open Watcom, you can use
72 the way the tests are built as base of your own build environment.
74 The library can also be built with the stack calling convention of the
75 compiler (-6s instead of -6r).
81 I've tried to make all tests work. The following table gives an overview
82 of the current status.
85 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
97 testiconv - (all failed)
100 testoverlay + (needs 'set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=directx')
101 testoverlay2 + (needs 'set SDL_VIDEODRIVER=directx')
109 testwin ? (fading doesn't seem right)
113 testjoystick not tested
121 There is room for further improvement:
122 - Test joystick functionality.
123 - Investigate fading issue in 'testwin' test.
124 - Fix the UTF-8 support.
125 - Adapt the makefile/object file list to support more target systems
126 - Use "#pragma aux" syntax for the CPU info functions.
129 Questions and Comments
130 ----------------------
132 Please direct any questions or comments to me: <mailto:macpete@gmx.de>