Windows with Visual Studio

Preparations

You need to get either Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008. We do not support .NET 2003 because the compiler is missing an important extension (variadic macros). There has also been no testing with any Express Edition version.

DirectX and OpenAL

Orxonox itself only requires DirectX 8, but the OGRE graphics engine runs faster with DirectX 9 than with OpenGL. But you will probably already have DirectX 9 anyway. Also make sure you have installed the latest version of OpenAL. ​OpenAL Homepage (download the Windows installer)

Getting everything set and done

1. Checkout the HEAD revision of the trunk or of any branch you like. Also checkout the data repository and put it on the same directory level as your source checkout. More information can be found in the SVN? section.
   
   
2. The next thing is getting the external dependencies. We supply these as precompiled archives (see at the bottom) with the lib, dll, pdb and include files. Once you got the archive, put it in the directory of your source checkout folder and extract it right there (not in a new folder). This will create a folder named "dependencies" that includes everything necessary.
   
   

You should now have a directory structure like this:

data_external (repository checkout, you choose the name..)
  ...
trunk (repository checkout, you choose the name..)
  bin
  ...
  dependencies
    bin
    include
    lib
  src

1. We use CMake to have better cross platform support. Get the latest (at least v2.6) binaries at ​cmake.org and extract/install them.
2. Run the CMake GUI and select your source checkout folder ('trunk' in my example above). The binary folder below can be anywhere except the source folder itself. We suggest trunk/build.
3. Hit configure
4. If you need additional configuration options, have a look a the General Build Options Page?.
5. Hit "configure" again (or as long as "generate" is unavailable) and then "generate". You will be prompted to select a generator. Choose the Visual Studio version you have (64 bit is not yet supported!).
6. Go to your freshly created binary folder, open Orxonox.sln and hit F7. That will build orxonox.
7. On the left you see all targets, make sure that 'orxonox-main' is bold by right clicking on it and selecting "Set as StartUp Project".
8. F5 will start the game.

Using dependencies for multiple compilers together

If you feel like using multiple compilers (VS8/VS9/MinGW), you have to change your directory structure of the dependencies a little. An example should clear the details:

trunk
  bin
  ...
  dependencies
    msvc8
      dependencies
        bin
        include
        lib
    mingw
      ...
  src

Using the same dependencies for multiple checkouts

While working on a branch you might still want to have the trunk checked out at the same time. But having the dependencies twice seems very redundant and unnecessary. You can avoid it like this:

branch
  ...
dependencies
  bin
  include
  lib
trunk
  ...

Using multiple checkouts with multiple compilers

Of course you can also combine the last two subsections. When looking for the dependencies, CMake looks for the direct dependencies subfolder first.

If you have any trouble, feel free to contact me (Reto '1337' Grieder).