Compiling under VS2010

Visual Studio 2010 is the best choice for Source. You can use the free C++ Express edition.

Bug:Converting the Alien Swarm server project to VS2010 will lead to an "invalid characters in path" error. To fix it, open game\server\swarm_sdk_server.vcproj with a text editor and delete "' $File" from line 2232.  [todo tested in ?]

Debugging

1. Follow the instructions for fixing debug compiles in VS2008, which apply here as well.
2. Right click on the client and server projects in VS and go to Properties > Configuration Properties > General. Change Target Name to client and server respectively.

File Copying

There is a bug in VS 2010 which will sometimes prevent your newly-compiled DLLs from being copied to your mod directory. To fix it, right-click on the client and server projects in VS and select Properties. Change the Configuration drop-down menu at the top to All Configurations. Then, go to Configuration Properties > Custom Build Step and in the Additional Dependencies field, type in $(TargetPath).

IsBIK error

First, save this code to src/public/avi/ibik.h. Then in src/game/client/enginesprite.h include avi/ibik.h and add insert the hightlighted lines toward the bottom:

bool IsAVI();
bool IsBIK();
void GetTexCoordRange( float *pMinU, float *pMinV, float *pMaxU, float *pMaxV );
 
private:
AVIMaterial_t m_hAVIMaterial;
BIKMaterial_t m_hBIKMaterial;

Now open spritemodel.cpp and add the following:

bool CEngineSprite::IsBIK()
{
	return ( m_hBIKMaterial != BIKMATERIAL_INVALID );
}

Fixing Other Compiling Errors

Error LNK2005: ... already defined in memoverride.obj

For each affected project right-click on it, go to Properties->Configuration Properties->Linker->Command Line and in Additional Options add the following: "/FORCE:MULTIPLE".

Warning: The "/FORCE:MULTIPLE" directive will only force the linker to output a file even if a symbol is defined multiple times. It doesn't mean it will work properly, and the linker will not link incrementally after this option is added to the command line, as stated on MSDN [1]. Commenting out the "void __cdecl _invalid_parameter_noinfo(void)" function definition at line 727 (OrangeBox) of "public\tier0\memoverride.cpp", as mentionned here, is much less susceptible of causing further problems.

Linker Errors relating to LIBC, LIBCMT, LIBCD, LIBCMTD

Go to the client project's Properties->Linker->Input->Ignore Specific Default Libraries and enter libc;libcmtd;libcd;. Navigate to the same place in the server project properties and enter libcd;libcmtd;.

Cannot locate "gl/glaux.h" (glview only)

Remove the line #include <gl/glaux.h> from glview.cpp. Then right-click on the project and go to Properties->Configuration Properties->Linker->Input and under Additional Dependencies remove glaux.lib.

Precompiled Headers

If you want to remove the "precompiled header" warnings seen during a full compile, open these files in your client project and move #include "cbase.h" up to the first line:

1. hud_locator.cpp
2. hud_credits.cpp
3. hud_flashlight.cpp

Compiling Under Linux

VS 2010 introduces a new project file format (.vcxproj) which is not compatible with the SDK's VprojToMake tool. A third-party update adding support is available.

See also

• Visual Studio 2010
• Launching from Visual Studio