RP412/BUILD.md

Building Red Planet 4.12 (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. As of RP 4.12 the build targets Visual Studio 2022 (v143); the legacy VS 2005/2008 projects are retained for reference (see §5).

✅ Verified build (2026-07-12): all 4 projects build clean (Release|Win32) with VS2022 Build Tools 17.14 (MSVC 14.44, v143) + Windows 11 SDK (10.0.26100) + DirectX SDK (June 2010). Outputs: Release\rpl4opt.exe (the game), Release\RPL4TOOL.exe, lib\Munga_l4.lib, lib\DivLoader.lib. Runtime-verified against the VC9 baseline built from the same tree: identical log output and behavior at every checkpoint, including RIO init against vRIO and mission load (see §4 for the pre-existing crash both builds share).

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1. Requirements

Component	Version	Notes
VS2022 Build Tools (or any VS2022 with C++ workload)	17.x, MSVC v143	Installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools. Install via winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --override "--quiet --wait --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended".
Windows 10/11 SDK	any recent (26100 verified)	Comes with the VCTools workload.
DirectX SDK (June 2010)	—	Still needed for d3dx9 and dxerr only; everything else now comes from the Windows SDK. The projects reference it via $(DXSDK_DIR), which the SDK installer sets machine-wide. The DXSDK include/lib paths are appended after the Windows SDK paths (see the IncludePath/LibraryPath properties in the projects) so modern headers win — do not move them to AdditionalIncludeDirectories.

Bundled third-party libraries (already in the repo)

Committed under lib/, no install needed: OpenAL32.lib, libsndfile-1.lib (import libs). At run time the game needs OpenAL32.dll (system-wide install — assets/RP411/oalinst.exe — or beside the exe) and libsndfile-1.dll (beside the exe; a copy ships in assets/RP411/).

2. Building

& "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe" `
    WinTesla.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=Win32 /m

Debug|Win32 also builds. x64 is not configured — this is a 32-bit build. The solution is WinTesla.sln with four v143 projects:

Project	Type	Output
MUNGA_L4/Munga_L4.vcxproj	Static lib	lib\Munga_l4.lib
RP_L4/RP_L4.vcxproj	App (Windows)	Release\rpl4opt.exe — the game
RP_L4/RPL4TOOL.vcxproj	App (Console)	Release\RPL4TOOL.exe
DivLoader/DivLoader.vcxproj	Static lib	lib\DivLoader.lib (Release)

Build order is resolved by ProjectReference (RP_L4 and RPL4TOOL both reference Munga_L4).

Packaging: pack-dist.ps1 assembles a runnable game into dist\ (exe + PDB, game data, OpenAL/libsndfile runtimes, desktop environ.ini, start-windowed.bat, README). Pass -Zip to also produce dist\RedPlanet412-prototype.zip for handing to someone else.

3. VS2022 migration notes (what changed and why)

Settings preserved from the VC9 projects: /Zp1 struct packing in Munga_L4 and RP_L4 (the engine's on-disk/on-wire binary formats depend on it — RPL4TOOL and DivLoader never had it), Unicode, subsystems, x86, /DYNAMICBASE:NO, optimization levels, and /FORCE:MULTIPLE (see below). Deliberate changes:

• CRT unified to /MD (Release) / /MDd (Debug). The VC9 build mixed /MT (Munga_L4, RPL4TOOL) with /MD (RP_L4) and forced the link.
• Import libs are no longer merged into Munga_L4.lib by the librarian; the exes link OpenAL32/d3d9/d3dx9/dinput8/dxguid/ws2_32 directly.
• WINDOWS_IGNORE_PACKING_MISMATCH is defined: the modern Windows SDK static_asserts against /Zp1; the VC9 build always compiled Windows headers at /Zp1, so this preserves those exact semantics. Un-/Zp1-ing the engine (pragma-pack only the serialized structs) is future work.
• _SILENCE_STDEXT_HASH_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS is defined: the code still uses stdext::hash_map; porting to std::unordered_map is future work.
• legacy_stdio_definitions.lib is linked: the June-2010 dxerr.lib references pre-UCRT stdio symbols.
• Source fixes (behavior-preserving): standard copy-ctor/assignment overloads added to Time (rvalues can't bind to volatile& in standard C++); operator==(SOCKADDR_IN&,...) in NETWORK.h made inline; the L4DINPUT callbacks renamed DIEnum* (they collided with L4CTRL's under LTCG); std::ios.in → std::ios::in in CAMMGR.cpp.
• /FORCE:MULTIPLE is still required: gOpNames, gReplacementData (hash_maps defined in a header) and GlobalEggFileName are genuinely defined in multiple TUs (LNK4006 warnings, same as the VC9 build). Moving them to a single TU is future cleanup.

4. Runtime notes

Fixed (2026-07-12): standalone mission load used to crash with an access violation in d3d_OBJECT::LoadTexture (MUNGA_L4/L4D3D.cpp): D3DXCreateTextureFromFileA failures were never checked and the NULL texture was cached and AddRef()ed. It crashed identically on VC9 — a latent defect in the 2007 DPL→D3D9 port, exposed by the pod-skin textures (VIDEO\player1–8) that a bare working copy doesn't contain (they normally come from the replacement-material/presets path, WTPresets → VIDEO\<name>.png). Missing textures now log L4D3D.cpp couldn't load texture … and render untextured; the game boots to a running window with -windowed -res 640 480 -egg TEST.EGG from a working copy like assets/RP411/.

For runtime debugging the v143 build produces full PDBs — run cdb -g -G -lines -y Release rpl4opt.exe ... from the working directory (cdb ships in this machine's Windows Kits).

Running without the cockpit (Workstream A prototype)

Two new environment options remove the hardware dependency entirely:

• L4CONTROLS=PAD;KEYBOARD — selects PadRIO (MUNGA_L4/L4PADRIO.cpp), an in-process RIO that speaks the full RIO control surface (buttons, axes, lamps) from an XInput controller + the PC keyboard. The stock VTVRIOMapper path runs unchanged. Hot-plugging works; with no controller it falls back to keyboard only.
• L4PLASMA=SCREEN — renders the 128×32 plasma display as its own desktop window ("Plasma Display", plasma orange, L4PLASMASCALE sets the pixel size, default 4). It opens directly below the main view; L4PLASMAPOS=x,y overrides. No COM port. Closing the window hides it.
• L4MFDSPLIT=1 — un-packs the 7-display cockpit. The pod hardware drove five monochrome MFDs from the color channels of two video outputs (window 3 = upper MFDs in R/G/B, window 4 = lower MFDs in R/G) and mounted the map display portrait. With split mode the game itself opens seven proper windows — main view, five green-screen MFDs ("MFD upper left/center/right", "MFD lower left/right") and the 90°-rotated "Map" — rendered CPU-side from the shared gauge canvas; the packed windows stay hidden. L4MFDSCALE sets the view size in percent of the gauge canvas (default 50). Default layout is the pod grid to the right of the main view; all windows are draggable. This replaces the external BitBlt-mirror launcher wrapper.

Bindings (vRIO's default profile, condensed):

Input	Pod control
Left stick / WASD	joystick X/Y
LT / RT, Q / E	left / right pedal
Right stick Y, PgUp / PgDn	throttle (rate; position holds)
A / Space	joystick trigger
B / R	reverse thrust (ButtonThrottle1)
DPad / arrows	joystick hat (look)
X, Y, LB, RB	pinky / thumb-low / thumb-low / thumb-high
Start / F1, Back / F2	config buttons (AuxUpperRight 1 / 2)

L4PADFLIP=XY (or X / Y) inverts the stick axes if the feel is wrong. Example desktop environ.ini:

L4CONTROLS=PAD;KEYBOARD
DPLARG=1
L4DPLCFG=RPDPL.INI
L4GAUGE=640x480x16
L4PLASMA=SCREEN
L4MFDSPLIT=1
TARGETFPS=60

Lamp commands land in PadRIO::lampState[] — the hook for the planned on-screen cockpit panel (vRIO buttons arranged around the displays).

Also note: Fail() compiles to abort() in release (MUNGA/DEBUGOFF.h) — e.g. running with L4CONTROLS=KEYBOARD alone aborts at VTV creation because no keyboard-only pod mapper exists (the old CRT showed a blocking R6010 dialog; the UCRT fail-fasts). Use L4CONTROLS=RIO;KEYBOARD with vRIO serving the RIO side, exactly like the arcade config.

5. Legacy VS2005/2008 build

The original .vcproj files and solution are kept as WinTesla_vc9.sln and still build with VC++ 2008 Express SP1 + DXSDK June 2010:

@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)\"
vcbuild /nologo /rebuild WinTesla_vc9.sln "Release|Win32"

See docs/BUILD-NOTES.md for the original repository cleanup history and the findings behind the legacy build.