RP411/BUILD.md

Building Red Planet (v4.10, Win32)

This is the Win32 source for the pod-racing game Red Planet, built on the in-house MUNGA engine and its L4 (Win32 / DirectX 9) platform layer. The code targets the Visual Studio 2005/2008 era and the legacy DirectX SDK.

✅ Verified build (2026-07-01): all 4 projects build clean (Release|Win32) with Visual C++ 2008 Express SP1 + Windows SDK v6.0A (VS-bundled) + DirectX SDK (June 2010). Outputs: Release\rpl4opt.exe (the game), Release\RPL4TOOL.exe, lib\Munga_L4.lib, lib\DivLoader.lib. Only compiler warnings remain (deprecated CRT calls, int→Scalar narrowing, benign LNK4006/LNK4221 duplicate-symbol notes). See §7 for the CLI recipe.

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1. Requirements

You must supply the toolchain — none of it is checked into this repo.

Component	Required version	Notes
Visual Studio	2005 (v8) or 2008 (v9) — Express is fine	Project files are the legacy .vcproj format. Modern MSBuild cannot build .vcproj directly — it needs VCBuild.exe, which only ships with VS 2005/2008. A newer VS (2022) can build these but will first upgrade the projects to .vcxproj. The code uses no MFC and (as of the ATL-removal change) no ATL, so the free Visual C++ Express editions build it — see §6.
DirectX SDK	June 2010 (installed) — March 2009 also works	Provides d3d9.lib, d3dx9.lib, dinput8.lib, dxguid.lib, dxerr.lib and headers. ✅ Confirmed installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010) with DXSDK_DIR set machine-wide.
Windows SDK / Platform SDK	Matching your VS (e.g. Windows SDK 7.1)	Provides WS2_32.lib, dbghelp.lib, etc. With an Express edition, install the standalone Windows SDK 7.1 to guarantee these. Note: dbghelp.lib is listed as a link input but no source references it — drop it from the linker line if it isn't found.
DXSDK_DIR environment variable	—	The DirectX SDK installer sets this automatically (includes a trailing backslash). The projects reference the SDK only through this variable — see §4.

Bundled third-party libraries (already in the repo)

These are committed under lib/ and do not need to be installed:

• OpenAL32.lib — OpenAL audio
• libsndfile-1.lib — sound-file loading

Their headers live in MUNGA_L4/openal/ and MUNGA_L4/sndfile.h. You will still need the matching runtime DLLs (OpenAL32.dll, libsndfile-1.dll) next to the built .exe to run it.

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2. Solution / project layout

The solution is WinTesla.sln. It builds four projects:

Project	File	Type	Output	Depends on
Munga_L4	MUNGA_L4/Munga_L4.vcproj	Static lib	lib\Munga_l4.lib	—
RP_L4	RP_L4/RP_L4.vcproj	Application (exe)	rpl4opt.exe	Munga_L4
RPL4TOOL	RP_L4/RPL4TOOL.vcproj	Application (exe)	tool exe	Munga_L4
DivLoader	DivLoader/DivLoader.vcproj	Static lib	lib\*.lib	—

Build order: Munga_L4 → then RP_L4 / RPL4TOOL (the dependency is declared in the solution, so a solution-level build resolves it automatically).

RP_L4 is the game itself. Its release output is rpl4opt.exe (subsystem: Windows GUI).

VS2008 project variants

Each of the three main projects also ships a ... VS2008.vcproj variant (format 9.00) alongside the original 8.00 files:

• MUNGA_L4/Munga_L4 VS2008.vcproj
• RP_L4/RP_L4 VS2008.vcproj
• RP_L4/RPL4TOOL VS2008.vcproj

The .sln references the 8.00 files. If you open in VS 2008, either let it upgrade the 8.00 projects, or repoint the solution at the VS2008 variants.

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3. Build steps

1. Install VS 2005/2008 (with the C++ workload) and the DirectX SDK. Confirm the SDK set DXSDK_DIR:

   echo $env:DXSDK_DIR
   

2. Open WinTesla.sln in Visual Studio.
   • If prompted to upgrade the projects (newer VS), accept — this rewrites the .vcproj files to .vcxproj. Keep those changes on a branch.
3. Select a configuration: Debug | Win32 or Release | Win32. (x64 is not configured — this is a 32-bit build.)
4. Build the solution (Ctrl+Shift+B). Munga_l4.lib is produced first into lib\, then the executables link against it.

Command-line build (only with VS 2005/2008 installed)

# From a "Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt":
vcbuild WinTesla.sln "Release|Win32"

Do not use C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\...\MSBuild.exe on this solution — it fails with MSB3428: Could not load the Visual C++ component "VCBuild.exe" because the legacy C++ toolset is not present.

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4. DirectX SDK path (no longer hardcoded)

Originally Munga_L4.vcproj and RP_L4.vcproj hardcoded the absolute path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2009)\.... These have been changed to use the standard installer-provided variable, matching what the VS2008 variants already did:

• Include dir → "$(DXSDK_DIR)Include"
• Library dir → "$(DXSDK_DIR)Lib\x86"

So any DirectX SDK version installed to any location will work, as long as DXSDK_DIR is set. If you build in an environment where it is not set, either set it manually or pass it to the build, e.g.:

$env:DXSDK_DIR = "C:\DXSDK\"   # note the trailing backslash

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5. Known caveats

• 32-bit only. No x64 configuration exists.
• Remote Debug|Win32 configuration is present but is a debugging target, not a normal build config.
• Requires the OpenAL and libsndfile runtime DLLs at run time (see §1).
• See docs/BUILD-NOTES.md for the repository cleanup history, orphaned files, and the full findings behind this document.

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6. Building with Visual C++ Express (2008)

The Express editions are free but ship without MFC and without ATL. This codebase uses no MFC, and its only ATL dependency has been removed, so Express now builds it:

• MUNGA_L4/L4APP.cpp previously included <atlbase.h> / <atlconv.h> and used the USES_CONVERSION / W2A macros to convert wide command-line arguments to ANSI. These were replaced with a small self-contained L4WideToAnsi helper (a thin WideCharToMultiByte wrapper) that reproduces ATL's W2A behaviour.
• UseOfATL was set to 0 in Munga_L4.vcproj, RP_L4.vcproj and their VS2008 variants.

Checklist for a clean Express build:

1. Install Visual C++ 2008 Express SP1.
2. Install the DirectX SDK (June 2010) and confirm DXSDK_DIR is set.
3. Open WinTesla.sln, pick Release|Win32, build.

The Windows SDK v6.0A that ships with VS2008 already provides WS2_32.lib and dbghelp.lib, so a separate Windows SDK 7.1 install was not needed in the verified build. dinput8.lib/dxguid.lib come from the DirectX SDK.

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7. Verified command-line build recipe

This is exactly what produced the verified build. The key gotcha: a shell opened before the DirectX SDK set the machine-level DXSDK_DIR will not see it, so the recipe sets it explicitly.

@echo off
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat"
set "DXSDK_DIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010)\"
cd /d C:\VWE\RP411
vcbuild /nologo /rebuild WinTesla.sln "Release|Win32"

Expected result: 4 Projects succeeded, 0 Projects failed.

DirectX SDK paths per project (all via $(DXSDK_DIR))

For the build to find DirectX headers/libs, each project that touches DirectX must reference the SDK through $(DXSDK_DIR). This is now wired up as:

Project	Include $(DXSDK_DIR)Include	Lib $(DXSDK_DIR)Lib\x86
Munga_L4	✅	✅
RP_L4	✅	✅
RPL4TOOL	(not needed)	✅
DivLoader	✅	(static lib, no link)