meson-gba - Modern GBA Development with Meson
May 17, 2024 · View on GitHub
This project provides Meson build files for various Game Boy Advance libraries and tools.
Development Notice
This project is still fairly experimental. Things are still messy, but are continuously being updated and improved. Things might break unexpectedly, and things are developed with the latest versions of Meson and GCC/devkitARM in mind, so make sure your tools are as up-to-date as can be.
What's Included
Libraries and tools can be accessed using the
dependency and find_program functions.
| Project | Version | Dependencies | Programs |
|---|---|---|---|
| agbabi | 2.1.7 | agbabi | |
| butano 1 2 | 17.3.0 | butano | |
| gba-hpp | r180.e313a94 | gba-hpp | |
| gba-link-connection | 6.2.3 | gba-link-connection | |
| gbfs | 2002-02-07 | gbfs | gbfs, insgbfs, lsgbfs, ungbfs |
| gbt-player | 4.4.1 | gbt-player | mod2gbt, s3m2gbt, s3msplit |
| grit | 0.9.2 | grit | |
| libfat 1 | 1.1.5.r2.g69543f0 | libfat | |
| libgba | r136.0d46fc9 | libgba | |
| libsavgba | 3.3.2 | libtonc | |
| libseven | 0.22.3 | libseven | |
| libtonc | r15.cc862ce | libtonc | |
| libugba/libsysgba | 0.3.0 | libugba, libsysgba | |
| libutil | r1.743f5d1 | libutil | |
| maxmod | 1.0.15 | maxmod | |
| minrt | 0.12.0 | minrt, minrt-multiboot | makerom, gbafix-py, bin2s-py |
| mmutil | 1.10.1 | mmutil | |
| posprintf | sdk-seven fork | posprintf | |
| superfamiconv | 0.9.2.r16.ga5027f3 | superfamiconv |
Installation and Usage
As all the libraries and tools are compiled from source, the only things you need to have installed and in your PATH are:
- meson (at least version 1.1.0 or later)
- git
- A compiler for your system (
cl.exe,gcc, etc.) - A compiler for the GBA (
arm-none-eabi-gcc)
See the meson gba book for more information.
Using devkitPro
If you want to use devkitPro (for example, if you want to use libfat), use the following command to generate a suitable cross file:
Windows, using Powershell (not recommended):
$f = gc meson/gba.ini; $f[1] = "path = '$Env:DEVKITARM/bin'"; sc dkarm.ini $f
Windows, using MSYS2:
sed "2cpath = '$(cygpath -m $DEVKITARM/bin)'" meson/gba.ini > dkarm.ini
Windows, using WSL / Linux / MacOS:
sed "2cpath = '$DEVKITARM/bin'" meson/gba.ini > dkarm.ini
Then run
meson setup --cross-file=dkarm.ini build
for the setup step.
To build, run:
ninja -C build
The built ROMs (.elf, .gba) will be in the build directory.
Check out the examples branch for some example projects.
Compiler Support
This toolchain works both with devkitARM, and "standard" arm-none-eabi-gcc distributions. When
reporting problems, please specify which compiler you're using, and what version (output of
arm-none-eabi-gcc --version), as well as the output of meson setup.
If you wish to detect the devkitARM compiler specifically:
cc = meson.get_compiler('c')
cc_ver = run_command(cc, '--version', capture: true, check: false)
have_devkitarm = cc_ver.stdout().to_lower().contains('devkitarm')
See the Meson compiler API for other things you can test for.
License
meson-gba is licensed under the zlib license. See LICENSE.txt for more information.
See the homepages of the bundled projects for their respective licensing.
Footnotes
-
Pulls in code from agbabi, gbt-player, libtonc, libugba, maxmod, posprintf and vgm-player. You may get linking errors if you try to combine those dependencies with butano. Use a partial dependency to access includes and build flags. ↩