/32blit-beta

Beta tester code for 32blit

Primary LanguageCMIT LicenseMIT

32blit Beta Testing Release

The code in this repository is intended for 32blit beta testers only. It's not intended for general release or for end users. If you expect to be able to get started quickly and easily- you're going to have a bad time.

The 32blit API itself isn't quite finalised yet and may be prone to sudden and sweeping rewrites- that's to say that feedback is appreciated, but your PRs might be in vain.

That said, we're really keen to hear feedback about the setup process, our documentation, ideal tooling, and generally how best get medium to advanced developers up and running with 32blit and C++.

While the 32blit API is not finalised, this repository represents an overview of how our C++ tooling will work and how we expect to separate user projects from API code and the SDL/STM32 front-ends.

You Will Need

  1. Some experience writing/compiling C/C++ software
  2. gcc for compiling test builds
  3. gcc-arm-none-eabi for compiling STM32 builds
  4. cmake and make for building 32blit libraries and examples
  5. A DFU upload tool, on Windows it's easiest to just use "DfuSe Demonstration" (available from st.com)
  6. Ubuntu on Windows 10 WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), or a Linux VM if you prefer.
  7. If you intend on building DFU files (for the device itself), on Ubuntu (or in WSL) you will also need Python3 installed, along with pip3 (sudo apt install python3 python3-pip) and install the following Python modules: pip3 install construct bitstring

On Windows 10 you can either build for win32 or use XMing and run your builds in WSL by prefixing with DISPLAY=:0.0.

For more information about how to build on the various systems, refer to the platform specific docs in the docs folder!

More docs!

Refer to the OS specific docs:

If you want to run the examples in a browser, refer to the Emscripten docs

If you want to run on device, refer to the 32blit docs

Overview of what is inside?

32blit

The 32blit directory contains the API/engine for developing your game. This engine contains all the graphics, sound and game logic functionality you'll need for building a 32blit game.

32blit-sdl

The 32blit-sdl directory contains an SDL2 HAL for 32blit compatible with Linux and Linux-on-Windows using Xming. You can use it to run your 32blit projects on your computer and test/debug them a little quicker.

You should be careful relying upon it, however, since 32blit-sdl is not an emulator you may run into memory or performance problems when deploying your game to a 32blit console.

If you're planning to use the SDL HAL you'll need to make sure you:

sudo apt install libsdl2-dev

32blit-stm32

The 32blit-stm32 directory contains the STM32 HAL for 32blit, compatible with the STM32H750. Once you're ready to get your project running on a 32blit console you will need to ensure you have the gcc-arm-none-eabi toolchain installed and then follow the instructions below for "Building & Running On 32Blit"

Examples / Projects

The examples directory contains example projects, these can be built into both SDL or STM32 binaries and cover a range of techniques from simple concepts to complete games.

Refer to the OS/platform specific documentation files in the docs/ folder for instructions on how to compile and run these examples.

Troubleshooting

If you see cannot create target because another target with the same name already exists you've probably run cmake .. in the wrong directory (the project directory rather than the build directory), you should remove all but your project files and cmake .. again from the build directory.

If you are getting complaints on WSL / Linux about python modules missing, you may have accidently installed them with sudo. When using pip3 to install modules do not use sudo, this will make sure that modules are installed for the current user.