Running Oolite-Windows

Overview

The Windows port of Oolite is built from the same source as the Mac OS X and Linux versions, and has all the features of those versions.

All OXPs should be compatible with the Windows port.

Getting and installing the game

The current stable release, 1.65, can be downloaded at Oolite.org. Test releases can be downloaded from the BerliOS project. New releases are announced on the Oolite forum.

To install, run the executable that you have just downloaded. You will get the familiar Windows installer.

The game has been tested on Windows XP and Windows 2000. It will not run on the DOS-extender versions of Windows such as Windows 95, 98 or ME. It will run on Vista, so long as drivers are available for the hardware you have. Early reports show no problems with Windows 7. You are advised to run the latest 3D graphics drivers from your 3D card manufacturer.

Important note for Vista users!

Summary:

DATA LOSS CAN RESULT if you install Oolite in Vista using the default Windows installer location.

Do This

Install Oolite to a non-default location, for example,

• C:\Oolite\
• C:\Games\Oolite\

etc.

Don't Do This

It is STRONGLY recommended NOT to use the default installation folder, or any path including the following:

•  %ProgramFiles%
•  %ProgramData%
•  %SystemRoot%

Why?

Vista rearranges some files outside the Oolite folder strucure, hiding saves games and causing OXP add-ons to malfunction. This is because Vista virtualizes files in these locations for legacy processes. The Microsoft explanation is here: [1]. An Oolite user warning is here.

Recovering Your Commanders Saved Under Vista

If you have already installed Oolite on a Vista machine and wish to move your saved games to a new and safer file location, search for the string "oolite-save" and also include system and hidden files. For example, the default commander could be found in the file named "Jameson.oolite-save".

Running the game

Find the Oolite icon in the Start -> Programs menu and click on it. Alternatively double click the Oolite program icon on the desktop. Note that the following key combination will get you out of 'graphics related trouble':

Shift-Escape: Quit Oolite immediately

If your game seems to have unreasonably low fps performance (check this in-game by hitting SHIFT-F) it is strongly recommended you visit your graphic cards' suppliers website and download and install the latest drivers.

Installing OXPs

You will need to find where the oolite.app folder is placed: it should be in C:\Program Files\Oolite. Vista users who have changed their installation folder as recommended above will need to look in the Oolite folder they created when they installed the game. Create an AddOns folder beside the oolite.app folder. Put OXPs in here. Note that some OXPs when unzipped contain a folder with a README file and then the OXP - in this case, it's best to unzip the OXP somewhere other than AddOns and copy the OXP folder once unpacked into AddOns.

Notes for amd64 users

No builds for 64-bit versions of Windows have yet been made, however, given the proper availability of graphics and sound drivers, the 32-bit version should run on 64-bit Windows. 32 bit Windows running on amd64 hardware should not have an issue.

Building Oolite from source

Updated on 09 January 2009.

These are the latest instructions for building Oolite on Windows. Acknowledgments and thanks to Kaks for providing them:

Important note: It is recommended that all packages for Windows be installed in paths that do not contain spaces. The same recommendation applies for the Windows username of the account the build is performed from. There have been reports of MSYS/make problems in such cases.

1. If you have an older version of GNUstep(GNUstep-base-1.11.1-gui-0.10.1-3 - from the wiki howto), uninstall it, then delete its root directory if it's still there(c:\GNUstep).
2. Google & download the following 2 packages, and - this is important - install them in this sequence: http://ftpmain.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/binaries/windows/gnustep-system-0.19.2-setup.exe, http://ftpmain.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/binaries/windows/gnustep-core-0.19.2-setup.exe
3. Google & download tortoiseSVN, install.
4. You need to have installed the latest oolite test download (1.72.1-test atm). Also required is the dependencies file for Windows. Download Local_20090108.zip [2].
5. Go to the Windows Start menu, navigate to and select Start>Programs>GNUstep>Shell
6. At the prompt :
   1. mkdir /Local
   2. mkdir /Local/oolite
   3. mkdir /Local/oolite/trunk . The first slash & the upper case L are very important!
7. From windows, extract the directories inside Local_20080124.zip to C:\GNUstep\Local
8. Still from windows go to C:\GNUstep\Local\oolite\trunk
9. It's empty. Right click>SVN checkout. The repository is svn://svn.berlios.de/oolite-linux/trunk . Wait for it to finish.
10. From inside the GNUstep shell
    1. export PATH=$PATH:/Local/bin
    2. cd /Local/oolite/trunk
    3. make clean
    4. make

At this point Ean - from the Oolite board - reports that

I had to add /Local/include to the include search path - dunno why but it works now.

11. Now you need to rename oolite.debug and copy dll files around. Ean has provided a fixwin shell script to do that automatically. An updated - and hopefully problem free - version of that script is inside this zip file [3]. Once extracted, put the file in C:\GNUstep\Local\oolite\trunk\

If everything goes well, these are the last two lines you need to type to get the compiled oolite to run:

1. fixwin
2. openapp oolite.app

If you have a problem running fixwin, do the following instead:

12. Still inside the GNUstep shell, type mv oolite.debug oolite.app

13. Now copy all the dlls from your installed copy of oolite 1.72.1-test. Assuming that you installed it to the default directory, copy all dlls from C:\Program Files\Oolite\oolite.app\ into C:\GNUstep\Local\oolite\trunk\oolite.app

14. Now you also need to copy all the dlls from C:\GNUstep\Local\bin to C:\GNUstep\Local\oolite\trunk\oolite.app. Overwrite all the duplicates.

15. We're now ready to launch the compiled oolite! From inside the GNUstep shell:

1. cd /Local/oolite/trunk
2. openapp oolite.app

The instructions below are valid only for versions prior to 1.70, only use them as an alternative if the updated ones fail for whatever reason.

1. Download and install the necessary software
   1. Download and install svn for Windows: [4]. Accept all defaults given by the installer.
   2. Download and install GNUstep for windows: [5]. Accept all defaults given by the installer.
   3. Download the SDL files required to build Oolite: [6]
   4. Unzip this file to c:\GNUstep\Local
2. Get the source and build it (note, the source comes from the oolite-linux project)
   1. Start the GNUstep command line (Start -> Programs -> GNUstep Development -> MSYS for GNUstep) and issue the following commands:
   2. cd $GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT
   3. export PATH=$PATH:$GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT/bin
   4. mkdir oolite
   5. cd oolite
   6. svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/oolite-linux/trunk
   7. cd trunk
   8. make
3. To run the game in the build environment:
   1. Before running the first time: cp $GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT/bin/*.dll oolite.app
   2. openapp oolite.app

Assuming you have installed one of Nic's releases as detailed above, you can easily keep updating the installation from the latest source. In the $GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT/oolite/trunk directory, issue the commands:

1. export PATH=$PATH:$GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT/bin
2. svn up
3. rm -rf oolite.app/Resources; make

You only need to issue the export PATH command when you first start the command line. The rm -rf command before make is required because GNUstep for Windows cannot parse the XML plist file format, and the build fails when it tries to read one of these generated each time the build is performed. This failure is not important, and the process still works, but it is annoying.

Then use the following script to copy the new files over the existing installation:

OA="/c/Program Files/Oolite/oolite.app"
cd $GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT/oolite/trunk
if [ oolite.app/oolite.exe -nt "$OA/oolite.exe" ]; then
    echo "Updating oolite.exe"
    cp oolite.app/oolite.exe "$OA/oolite.exe"
fi

for a in AIs Config Images Models Music Sounds Textures; do
    for b in Resources/$a/*; do
        c=`basename $b`
        if [ $b -nt "$OA/Contents/Resources/$a/$c" ]; then
            echo "Updating with $b"
            cp $b "$OA/Contents/Resources/$a/$c"
        fi
    done
done

If you want to edit the source, Notepad++ has good Objective-C support and is free: [7]

Also see the Oolite-PC forum: [8]