INSTALL: The FreeCraft (fka ALE Clone) Version 1.17
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T H E W A R B E G I N S
FreeCraft - A free fantasy real time strategy game engine
(C) Copyright 1998-2001 by The FreeCraft Project. Distributed under the
"Artistic License"
Install Unix source
Install Unix binary
Install Win32 source
Install Win32 binary
Software Requirements
You need:
- Operating systems:
- Linux System with an installed X Windows System.
- Linux System with console (graphic card) supported by svgalib.
- Any BSD System with an installed X Windows System.
- Maybe any other Unix/POSIX OS with X Windows System installed.
You may have to create the configuration by hand and install additional non-common
libraries (see below) and gcc (untested).
- BeOS System with an installed X Windows System.
- MacOS System with an installed X Windows System.
- X Windows System with 8/15/16/24/32bit X Server.
- Win32 system win95, win98, winME, winNT or win2000.
- For network play WIN95 OSR2 (aka win95b) or higher is required
since some features of Winsock2 (WS2_32.DLL) are used. We try
to emulate this using WSOCK32.DLL features, but that code is not in yet.
- winNT mean winNT4.0 + service pack 3 or higher for the same
reasons.
- libpng. (I use libpng-2.1.0, aka 1.0.5)
- zlib. (Also needed for libpng, I use libz-1.1.3)
- SIOD. (Included in the distribution)
- The original game CD or expansion CD for manuals and maindat.war
for graphics and sfxdat.sud for sounds.
Or use the free replacements from the freecraft graphics and sounds projects.
These are optional:
- libpthread. (For threaded sound support)
- SVGALib (for console support)
- SDL (Additional SDK support)
Hardware Requirements
To use this program you need the following hardware:
- At least an i586 133 Mhz (faster recommended) and 16 MB Ram.
- Any graphic-card with 15/16bit videomode running with X11 or
SVGALib or Win32.
- 8/24/32 bit modes work, but may be buggy.
- Freecraft is believed to be endian save, so other (big endian)
architectures like ppc should also work at least with Linux.
Installation
Unix or BSD
Please follow the following instruction to get a working program.
- Unpack the archive freecraft-'data'.tar.gz to any directory.
(stored with path)
- Change to the toplevel directory (cd freecraft-'date').
- Read doc/install.html.
- Install the required libraries (development version!).
- You own the original:
- Search the files maindat.war, sfxdat.sud,strdat.war and rezdat.war
from the original game.
This version supports the original or expansion CD!
If you have only the original CD, it should also work, ignore the
warnings.
- Edit tools/build.sh, and change ARCHIVE to the correct path.
(You could use an installed version or the CD-ROM)
Extract from "/cdrom" is the default. Just mount your cd to /cdrom.
- With the graphic from the FreeCraft Graphic Project:
- Get the correct fcraft (graphic) and scraft (sound) archives.
- Download fcraft from FGP
- Download scraft from FreeCraft
- Extract them.
- Copy Rules.make.orig to Rules.make and edit it or run the setup
script.
- Type "./setup" to configure the graphics, sound, and compression
options.
- "./setup --help" shows a list of available setup options
- You have the option of running "make" from the script,
bypassing the next step.
- If you have the original type "make buildit" or
". tools/build.sh", to extract and convert the needed graphics,
sounds and puds. (You need to run this only once!)
- Now it's time for a coffee break.
- Type "make". (Should compile without errors :-)
- Optional:
- Edit "data/ccl/freecraft.ccl" to configure FreeCraft
with SIOD support.
- Now you could start with "./freecraft".
- That's all, I hope you have enjoyed the game.
- If you find any bug, look in
todo.html
if it is already known, if not please mail it to
The FreeCraft Project.
- ADVANCED: Type "make help" for more compile options.
- If you get killed everytime by the computer, let the ai sleep with
the command line option "-s n" (sleep n frames) or set the build
costs and build times of the computer with -f 110 and -t 110 higher.
SVGALib support = console
Make sure that you have installed the SVGALib development kit. The setup
script should take care of the rest.
You can find more information and the source on the
SVGALIB home
SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) support
Make sure that you have installed the SDLlib development kit. The setup
script should take care of the rest.
You can find more information and the source on the
Simple DirectMedia Layer Home
Prepare network play
You can play FreeCraft via network or may run 2 or more clients on the same computer. Install
it on all computers with the above instructions.
You can now start it on each computer with:
You need a server
freecraft -p [players] [map]
freecraft -p 2 ./data/puds/multi/3vs3.pud.gz
The game waits until all players are connected. Press ALT-'q' to quit the
game.
You need the clients
freecraft -n [server] [map]
freecraft -n localhost ./data/puds/multi/3vs3.pud.gz
[server] may be the hostname (e.g. www.freecraft.org) or the IP adress (e.g. 192.168.0.1.) of the
game server. The map must be the same on all computers.
Unix or BSD
Please write this part :).
Win32
Win32 source
See unix source and write this part.
Win32 binary
Please follow the following instruction to get a working program.
- FIXME: Who writes this part?
- Get the binary version from the web page.
- Unpack it into a directory of your choise (c:\games\FreeCraft)
- Open a dos-shell.
- Enter "cd c:\games\FreeCr~1"
- You own the original:
- Edit tools\build.bat to meet your requirements.
If your original cdrom is in drive D:\, you didn't need to edit.
- Run tools\build.bat from the FreeCraft toplevel directory.
This extracts the graphics and sound from the original datafiles.
- With the graphic from the FreeCraft Graphic Project:
- Get the correct fcraft (graphic) and scraft (sound) archives.
- Download fcraft from FGP
- Download scraft from FreeCraft
- Extract them into your game directory.
- Enter "freecraft" to play.
- If you have problems look into stdout.txt
or stderr.txt for more informations.
Hints
You find the FreeCraft Graphic Project here:
The FreeCraft Graphic Project
You get libpng and libz here:
ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png
Alternative:
ftp://swrinde.nde.swri.edu/pub/png/src/
Please see the PNG homepage for more information:
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/png/
You can also look at the zlib homepage for more informations:
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/zlib/zlib.html
You get pthread here:
Please see the LinuxThreads homepage for more information:
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/linuxthreads
You can get SVGALIB here:
http://www.svgalib.org/
You can get SDL here:
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/
Or you can get SDL here:
http://www.libsdl.org/
SIOD: Scheme in One Day
The most recent release is available from
this web page,
and also from
ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/gjc/
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
The FreeCraft Project