New release: FPC 2.2.4a for Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS

**paul_nicholls** · 04-06-2009, 01:50 PM

Well, maybe I stuffed up when installing devkitARM...

I downloaded the file devkitProUpdater-1.5.0.exe and ran it.

I selected the download but not install option so I would have the files for later if need be.

I then ran the devkitARM_r26-win32.exe to extract to g:\ which created the g:\devkitARM folder.

I only just realised that i hadn't run the msys installation exe which was downloaded too.

EDIT: now that is installed too, but I still get the same results...

I have other files like:

libgba-20090222.tar.bz2
libnds-1.3.4.tar.bz2

and a bunch others...what do I do with them exactly?

Maybe I should re-do the whole install and let it install everything itself...

EDIT: I am redoing the install and letting it do it itself now to see if this fixes things

cheers,
Paul

**Legolas** · 04-06-2009, 02:32 PM

Yes, as I have said the installer sets some env vars, so just let it do the magic

**paul_nicholls** · 04-06-2009, 10:25 PM

It now seems to work, yay

I now have these two files (amongst others)

fpcmade.arm-gba
PcxView.gba

Thanks Legolas

cheers,
Paul

**dazappa** · 01-07-2009, 11:39 PM

Eh the download links are broken

Just got my homebrew cartridge for my DS in the mail today too (and it's nice!).

**Legolas** · 02-07-2009, 06:29 AM

Just checked and it seems to work fine here.

However you can use the sourceforge's mirror too:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/

**dazappa** · 02-07-2009, 09:09 AM

Thanks; downloaded and installed but it's giving me trouble. "Error: Target "nds", package "libndsfpc" not found

I have checked, msys and another environment variable are set. I don't have any build.bat in an example directory (like what apparently the GBA ones have) so I'm unsure if I'm supposed to have one.

I have tried running setpath.bat and setting it to both "C:\devkitPro" and "C:\devkitPro\devkitARM" and both give the error

And just for grins, I decided to try out making a build.bat like above:

Code:

@echo off

set path=C:\fpcds\bin\arm-nds;%PATH%

fpcmake -w -Tnds

make OS_TARGET=nds CPU_TARGET=arm BINUTILSPREFIX=arm-eabi- 

pause

Which spits out

Code:

Processing Makefile.fpc
Error: Target "nds", package "libndsfpc" not found
/bin/pwd.exe: couldn't find directory entry in `..' with matching i-node
Makefile:135: *** Compiler .exe not found. Stop.
Press any key to continue . . .

**Legolas** · 02-07-2009, 11:42 AM

That error comes because the batch script I used to create the packages forgot to generate a file required... However this problem was reported via PM by Matt140, but I forgot to post here how to fix it

So, let see: make a file called Package.fpc in your units\arm-nds\libndsfpc directory, then copy this on it:

Code:

[package]
name=libndsfpc
version=2.2.4a
[require]
nortl=y

Now try to recompile an example. If you still get errors, then the problem is that your fpcmake can't find where the libndsfpc package is located. This happens e.g. when you are making a new project and you are using an example as template. You will need to edit makefile.fpc in your project and change the fpc dir path, so that it points to your fpc root directory. Remember that this is a path relative to the directory where your makefile.fpc is located. For example, I have my fpc compiler installed in

c:\tools\fpc4nds

I'm making a new project in

c:\tools\fpc4nds\examples\myProject

and, in this directory, I have my makefile.fpc file. In order to make it working, let's change fpcdir as follow:

Code:

...
[default]
cpu=arm
target=nds
fpcdir=../..

As you can see, ../.. points to c:\tools\fpc4nds\ starting from c:\tools\fpc4nds\example\myProject
If my project is located in c:\tools\fpc4nds\examples\what\ever\myProject, then fpcdir should be ../../../..

In order to (re)generate makefiles for nds, last step to do is:

Code:

fpcmake -r -w -Tnds

where -r is a flag used to recursively scan directory and -w is used to phisically write Makefile.

In order to compile with make, the command line is:

Code:

make OS_TARGET=nds CPU_TARGET=arm BINUTILSPREFIX=arm-eabi- PP=ppcarm.exe

fpcmake is only required if you need to rewrite the Makefile, as the "set path=" is only required if you haven't added the fpc's binaries directory to your PATH environment variable

**dazappa** · 02-07-2009, 02:02 PM

Compiled successfully and working happily on my DS

Thanks for the fix (My DS emulator doesn't like the file though heh, so testing a new build of whatever I make will be annoying)

Although, the animate simple example doesn't actually seem to animate -- it's just a single frame in each direction. By tapping a direction (not holding it) I can see that it kind of tries to animate to other frames, but fails miserably.

**Legolas** · 02-07-2009, 02:58 PM

Just tested the example on no$gba and it works fine here.

I'm @work now so I can't test on real hardware

Out of curiosity, which DS emulator are you using?

**dazappa** · 02-07-2009, 03:16 PM

My emulator is dsmume .9.2; it just freezes at a blank white screen. On the actual DS it shows some images but it has the problem described above. I think it's animating way too fast because it doesn't have any kind of timer - just keeps changing the frame while the key is down, and if the DS fires off key down events fast like every other language I've seen, that would likely explain it. (See below; this also runs fast on an emulator. Need a way to time animations)

- Tried the emulator you use, it works. Now it should be a bit easier to test stuff out!