Building Allegro 4.4.3+ Deluxe from source code on Windows with MinGW-W64

Downloads for the build tools

Download links :

Downloads for the dependencies and dependency package

A4DepSources.7z

This dependency package contains the following libraries source code as of the last update time of this page.
Included are :

After downloading the A4DepSources.7z archive file, use 7-zip to extract the contents to c. There will be a folder called libsrc inside the archive. So you should now have c:\libsrc as a directory. The following tutorial assumes this is where you put it. If you put it somewhere else, that works. Know that it will be referred to as the libsrc folder in the tutorial though.

Installing 7-Zip

Use 7-Zip's provided installer to install 7-Zip.

Installing CMake

Use CMake's provided installer to install CMake version 3 or greater. Build process tested with CMake 3.14.

When installing CMake, choose the option to add CMake to your %PATH%

Installing GIT

Use GIT's provided installer to install GIT.

Installing MinGW-W64

Before we can build anything, we need a working compiler. This guide uses MinGW-W64 on Windows.

To install MinGW use 7-zip to extract the archive. Rename this folder to 'mingw' and move it to c:\

Now add "c:\mingw\bin" to your PATH. You can do this through the windows environment variables settings page, or you can do it with a script containing the command :

set path=c:\mingw\bin;%PATH%

This prepends the mingw bin directory to your system PATH. This will only last as long as the current command window is open. Hence the need for a startup script for compiling with MinGW. I'll leave this as an exercise to the readers.

Installing MSYS 1.0.11

To build several of the dependency libraries, we need to use MSYS 1.0.11 to use the autotools builds.

Instructions for installing MSYS 1.0 can be found here. You need to install MSYS 1.0.11, the MSYS DTK, and then extract the MSYS Core over the top of your new installation. Install to the default location, which is C:\msys. I put together an archive containing all the files you need to install MSYS 1.0.11. Find it here :

MSYS_1pt0pt11.7z

Next, run your new msys.bat file in your new c:/msys/1.0 folder to launch the MSYS shell. Verify you have a working installation and the path is set correctly. By default, msys will add c:\mingw\bin to its path. At the terminal, type

g++ --version

It should output the version of gcc you are using. If so, you're good to go.

Compiling with MSYS 1.0

Since ogg and vorbis rely on configure scripts to build, we must run them through MSYS. MSYS2 will work, but will not be covered here.

First step is to open an msys terminal and check that our compiler is working.

Open msys.bat from your desktop link of the newly installed MSYS and run the following commands :

>echo $PATH
...
>g++ --version
...

You should see that /mingw/bin is on the path. By default MSYS mounts c:\mingw to /mingw.

After the second command, you should see the version of g++ in use in the output.

If one or the other fails, check your MSYS and MinGW installations.

Begin by changing directories to your libsrc directory :

cd /c/libsrc

There are some common commands to each installation. First change directory into the ogg or vorbis folder, then execute the following commands;

mkdir autobuild
cd autobuild
../configure --prefix=/c/distro
make
make install

../configure --prefix=/c/mingw/i686-w64-mingw32
make
make install

Compiling with CMake

Compiling with cmake is easy.

Following are the generic commands you will use for each library you build with cmake.

First open a command prompt and use your script or set command to add the compiler to the %PATH%.

Second, execute 'cd c:\libsrc' and then cd to the appropriate directory for zlib, libpng, or freetype2.

Third, for each library create a build folder, change directory to it, and execute cmake-gui.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake-gui ..

Once you're in cmake-gui, there are some common configuration variables that need to be set. Choose whether to build in debug or release mode, and where to install it.

CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE [Release | Debug]
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX c:\distro\

Once you configure and generate the build files, go back to your command prompt and enter the following commands :

mingw32-make
mingw32-make install

FT_WITH_PNG
FT_WITH_ZLIB