Compiling Agar on Windows with MinGW+MSYS

The recommended way of compiling Agar natively under Windows is using MSYS. MSYS provides the basic environment needed to support the ./configure script and the build system. The libraries produced are native and independent of MinGW.

Step 1: Installing MinGW / MSYS

First install the base MinGW components. To faciliate this task, you can download the Automated MinGW Installer from this page.

Then get the MSYS installer from the MinGW download area, and proceed with the installation. You will probably want to install the gdb package as well if you are going to be developing applications.

Note: If you are using Windows x64, as of MSYS-1.0.10, the following fix is required otherwise the MSYS shell will not start.

Step 2: Installing SDL

Download the latest release from the SDL 1.2 series and install:

  $ tar -xzf SDL-1.2.x.tar.gz
  $ cd SDL-1.2.x
  $ ./configure && make && make install

Step 3: Installing FreeType (Optional / Recommended)

FreeType is needed for high-quality, antialiased font rendering. If FreeType is unavailable, Agar will revert to rendering text using a built-in, monospace bitmap font. Download the latest source package of the 2.1 series (or later, if you're adventurous) from the freetype download area, and install:

  $ tar -xzf freetype-2.1.x.tar.gz
  $ cd freetype-2.1.x
  $ ./configure && make && make install

Step 4: Installing Pthreads (Optional / Recommended)

Thread safety and support for thread management in Agar-Core requires the POSIX threads API. POSIX threads are supported natively by all modern, decent operating systems. Under Windows, you will need to use a small library called Pthreads-win32.

Go to the Pthreads-win32 download area, get the latest version (pthreads-w32-2-x-x-release.exe) and extract to in some temporary location. In the Pre-built.2 directory, locate the lib and include directories and copy their contents, respectively, to your MSYS library and include paths (for example C:\Msys\1.0\local\lib and C:\Msys\1.0\local\include, or /local/lib and /local/include in MSYS).

Copy the DLL files (or at least PthreadVC2.DLL) from the lib subdirectory to your C:\Windows\System (or C:\Windows\SysWOW64 with Windows x64).

Step 5: Installing Agar

At this point, you should be ready to compile and install Agar. Go to the Agar source directory and issue:

  $ ./configure && make && make install

Note: If you've compiled Agar with threads support, make sure pthreads is working by passing the --enable-threads option to ./configure, which will fail if there is a problem with it.