MAME Build Tools

Introduction

The MAME development environment for Windows consists of the GCC compiler (by way of MinGW), and the MSYS2 (POSIX/Unix compatability layer), plus various utilities such as Python and Git. It is available as a prepackaged installer, or can be assembled from upstream components.

Source control is handled by github (https://github.com/mamedev/mame.git), so you'll need to check out a copy. Various modules are disabled by default, but can be enabled through arguments when building and may require additional MSYS2 packages to be installed.

Installation and building

Downloads

• Windows Dual 32-bit/64-bit - msys64-32-2019-03-25.exe (If you have 64-bit Windows but wish to build for both 32-bit and 64-bit. To switch between different mingw versions use config32.bat and config64.bat)

Installation

If you are installing it in a location other than the default (c:\msys64 or c:\msys32), after you unpack double-click : autorebase.bat

To open a non-posix shell there is the batch file win32env.bat for regular windows console.

Important thing is to setup your git environment first

git config --global core.autocrlf true

And if you are contributor

git config --global user.email youremail@something.com


git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"

Building

Then, to download the MAME source under your Msys2 user's homedir:

git clone https://github.com/mamedev/mame.git

Alternatively, locate your existing source tree (drives are mapped to hidden dirs /c etc. under the virtual root):

cd /c/Projects/mame

And finally to build:

make

Updating build tools

Similar to package managers on Linux like apt-get, yum etc. MSYS2 can automatically update packages for fixes, security updates etc. To update all installed packages to current, from a regular Windows console run the following:

pacman -Sy


pacman -S bash pacman msys2-runtime --noconfirm --needed

Next, exit the console and restart Msys2.

Finally, once back at the console, execute:

pacman -Su --noconfirm

Alternative Shells for advanced usage

For a simple MSYS32 terminal use mingw64.exe to start or mingw32.exe.

For more information about Msys2, see MSYS2 Introduction.

Optional additional packages

SDL

If you wish to build with the SDL renderer:

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2_ttf

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-SDL2 mingw-w64-i686-SDL2_ttf

QT5

If you wish to build with the QT5 debugger:

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-qt5

QT4

If you with to build the QMC2 frontend or similar:

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-qt4

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-qt4

Doxygen

To be able to generate the documentation from the source:

   pacman -S doxygen 

CCache

To be able to use ccache to speed-up (re)compilation

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-ccache 

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-ccache 

CMake

Used as build system for some other project that can be handy

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake 

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-cmake 

To build in Windows environment use from build folder:

   cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" .. -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=c:\msys64\win32\make.exe

To build in MSYS environment use from build folder:

   cmake -G "MSYS Makefiles" ..

Clang

If you wish to compile/link with the alternative Clang, go ahead and download STILL EXPERIMENTAL:

For x64

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-clang mingw-w64-x86_64-clang-analyzer mingw-w64-x86_64-clang-tools-extra 

For x86

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-clang mingw-w64-i686-clang-analyzer mingw-w64-i686-clang-tools-extra