Compiling under VS2008

In this tutorial you will learn how to get the Source SDK up and running with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. There are several things you're going to have to do to get it working.

Creating a New Source Mod

If you haven't already, you need to create a new Source mod. The Create a Mod tutorial goes over in detail how to do this.

Modifying Files

To do all of this in a non-destructive way, we must copy our VS2005 files and make a new solution. If you've just created your mod, you do not need to make copies of the files mentioned below.

• Copy src/Game_HL2MP-2005.sln and rename the copy to Game_HL2MP-2008.sln.
• Copy src/cl_dll/client_hl2mp-2005.vcproj and rename the copy to client_hl2mp-2008.vcproj.
• Copy src/dlls/server_hl2mp-2005.vcproj and rename the copy to server_hl2mp-2008.vcproj.

Note:If you are using the Orange box source code, you will need to copy Game_HL2MP-2005.sln, game\client\client_hl2mp-2005.vcproj and game\server\server_hl2mp-2005.vcproj and replace 2005 with 2008.

You'll now have created a new project to work with. This is important, as you don't want to go around messing up your entire SDK installation if you mess up. With that done, we can now go ahead and modify our setup.

• Open the newly created Game_HL2MP-2008.sln in a text editor.
• You should see 2 strings, cl_dll\client_hl2mp-2005.vcproj and dlls\server_hl2mp-2005.vcproj. Change the 2005 in both of them to 2008.

Note:If you are using the Orange Box version of the source code, the paths will be different, but you can still simply change the 2005 to 2008.

Upgrading the Project

• Open Game_HL2MP-2008.sln in Visual Studio 2008. You will be prompted to upgrade the project files.
• At the first section of the upgrade process, you are asked if you want to create a backup before converting.
• We want to select "No". Wait for the conversion process to complete, then press the Finish button. You should now automatically launch into your newly converted solution.

We don't need to backup anything because we did a better manual backup ourselves. It's OK if the conversion process tells you that it complied with a few warnings, as this is normal. This SDK was originally meant for VS2005, so there's bound to be some problems.

Installing the DirectX SDK

For creating new shaders you will need the MS DirectX SDK (March 2008). Once installed, follow the below instructions below to incorporate it with your project.

• In VS2008 Go to Tools - Options: Projects and Solutions - VC++ Directories
• Select "Include files" and add "...\Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2008)\Include"
• Select "Library files" and add "...\Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2008)\Lib\x86"
• In the Solution Explorer right click 'client_hl2', and select Properties.
• In the client_hl2 properties window, navigate to Linker - Input
• Select the 'Additional Properties' row and click the '...' on the right hand side of the row
• If there is already an entry here, take a new line after it (a space will suffice if you cannot create a new line), and type ' user32.lib ' without the quotes.
• Repeat these steps for 'server_hl2'

Other Important Changes

We need to make sure we're compiling in Release (VS2008, in fact does not compile debug mode).

• Right-click on "Solution Game_HL2MP-2008" in your Solution Explorer and select Properties.
• Click the Configuration Properties option.
• Under the Configuration tab in the table that appears on the right of the window, use the selection box to change or verify that both solutions are set to "Release". Once you've done this, press Apply, then OK.

The compiler also encounters this bug: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=214. In order to fix it you just need to change some lines:

• Open c_vguiscreen.cpp and find the following line:

dist = c_x / tan( M_PI * scaled_fov / 360.0 ); This is line 348 in stock OB HL2DM code.

• Now replace that line with these:

float dist_denom = tan( M_PI * scaled_fov / 360.0f ); dist = c_x / dist_denom;

You might think we're all done, but if you compiled right now, you'd find that you still get errors and whole lot of warnings. The warnings are just fine, but those stupid errors are the only thing preventing you from compiling correctly. Luckily, there's an easy fix; just compile the 'client_hl2mp' first, then the 'server_hl2mp' - it's that simple!

Your SDK installation should now be fully operational. You might still get some warnings, but you shouldn't get any more errors on your first build if you followed these steps. I recommend you build now while the installation is still fresh so you don't have to do this again and so you know everything is working the way it should. If you are still getting errors, keep retrying this tutorial until you don't anymore, as I've confirmed this works.