File: docs/README.WIN32

Last updated: Nov 08, 2002 - Karl Schultz - kschultz@users.sourceforge.net

Quick Start

Unzip both ZIP files (MesaLib and MesaDemos) into the same directory.
This is important because the current makefiles in MesaLib assume that
the directories in MesaDemos are present.

If you have Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 installed, simply go to the top directory
of the Mesa distribution and type 'nmake -f Makefile.win NODEBUG=1' for
an optimized build.  Note that you may have to run ...VC98/BIN/VCVARS32.BAT
to set up the appropriate compiler environment variables.

Details and Notes

- Building Mesa as noted above should visit and build the following:
  src        MesaGL.dll, MesaGL.lib, osmesa.dll, osmesa.lib
  si-glu     MesaGLU.dll, MesaGLU.lib
  src-glut   glut32.dll, glut32.lib
  demos      a handful of demo executables.
  book       more examples
  samples    more examples

- After building, you can copy the above DLL files to a place in your PATH
  such as $SystemRoot/SYSTEM32.  If you don't like putting things in a
  system directory, place them in the same directory as the executable(s).
  For example, you can copy the DLL files to the demos directory if you
  just want to run the demos. The build process places the DLL and LIB files
  in the ./lib directory.  The makefile creates this directory if it does 
  not already exist.

- The make targets 'clean' and 'clobber' will remove objects and libraries.
  But the files in ./lib are never cleaned.

- The make target 'install' will take its best shot at copying DLL files,
  LIB files, and headers to the right places.  I strongly suggest that
  you examine the makefiles to make sure that 'install' doesn't do anything
  that you can't live with.

- The makefiles are designed to work with Microsoft's NMAKE, and do,
  unfortunately, have some Microsoft-specific things in them.  If you
  would like to use gcc or some other build tools like the Cygnus tools,
  then you will have to hack the makefiles to make them work with your
  tools.  I'm sorry about this; I wasn't motivated to make this any
  different, but if you end up modifying the makefiles for your tools,
  you can send me the changes and I can apply the changes to the 
  source tree.

- There are no Microsoft Visual Studio project files.  However, these
  should be very easy to create.  One can use the compiler and linker
  options found in the makefiles to make quick progress in creating
  projects.

- The DLL files are built so that the external entry points use the
  stdcall calling convention.

- Static LIB files are not built.  The LIB files that are built with
  the current makefiles are the linker import files associated with
  the DLL files.  If static LIB's are desired, it should not be too
  difficult to modify the makefiles to generate them.

- The si-glu sources are used to build the GLU libs.  This was done
  mainly to get the better tessellator code.

- The osmesa driver builds and should work on Windows as well as
  any other platform.

- The Windows driver (in src/Windows) builds and runs at least at
  a minimal level.  I modified this driver to work with the new
  Mesa 4.0 code and driver architecture, but I did not do a great
  deal of optimization and testing.  There are many opportunities
  for optimization, many of which can be done by coding more specific
  paths for the rasterizers.  See src/osmesa/osmesa.c for some good
  examples.

- There is DirectDraw support in the Windows driver, updated by
  Daniel Slater.  You'll need to uncomment the #define DDRAW line
  in src/Windows/wmesadef.h and add ddraw.lib to the list of libraries
  in src/Makefile.win.  On some systems, you will acheive significantly
  higher framerates with DirectDraw.

- Some of the more specialized code like FX drivers, stereo, and
  parallel support isn't compiled or tested.  I left much of this
  code alone, but it may need some work to get it 'turned on' again.

- No assembly code is compiled or assembled.  Again, this may need
  some work to turn it back on or use it again.

If you have a Windows-related build problem or question, it is
probably better to direct it to me (kschultz@users.sourceforge.net),
rather than directly to the other Mesa developers.  I will help you
as much as I can.  I also monitor the Mesa mailing lists and will
answer questions in this area there as well.


Karl Schultz