Skip to content

msvc-setup.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
210 lines (158 loc) · 7.66 KB

msvc-setup.md

File metadata and controls

210 lines (158 loc) · 7.66 KB

MSVC 2005 SP1 toolchain setup (Phase 2)

Matching decomp lives or dies on using the exact cl.exe and link.exe the original developers used. Wrong service-pack → wrong codegen → no amount of source tweaking will match.

For meteor-decomp, the target is MSVC 14.00.50727.762 — Visual Studio 2005 SP1 — based on the linker version 8.0 baked into all five FFXIV 1.x PE binaries. See compiler-detection.md for the full evidence.

This document covers:

  1. What to obtain
  2. Where it can legitimately come from
  3. How to lay it out for tools/cl-wine.sh
  4. How to verify on the Rosetta Stone function

1. What to obtain

The minimum viable VS 2005 SP1 setup needs:

Path What
bin/cl.exe The C/C++ compiler driver
bin/c1.dll C front-end
bin/c1xx.dll C++ front-end
bin/c2.dll Code generator
bin/link.exe Linker
bin/cvtres.exe Resource compiler (optional)
bin/ml.exe MASM (optional, for any inline asm)
bin/mspdb80.dll Symbol-server runtime
include/ C/C++ runtime + STL headers
lib/ Static libraries (libcmt.lib,
libcpmt.lib, kernel32.lib,
user32.lib, gdi32.lib, etc.)
Platform SDK 2003 R2 SP1 Windows headers (windows.h,
winsock2.h, etc.) + import libs

You don't need the IDE (devenv.exe), the help docs, the F# / VB compilers, or any of the redistributables. Cherry-pick the C++ compiler, linker, headers, and libs.

2. Legitimate sources

In strict order of preference:

a) MSDN Subscriber Downloads (the canonical path)

If you have an MSDN / Visual Studio Subscription that covers VS 2005 (most legacy enterprise subscriptions do), the SP1 ISO is at:

Visual Studio 2005 → Visual Studio Professional 2005 → Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition (English) (SP1 included for later builds) — en_vs_2005_pro_sp1.iso

Plus the Platform SDK 2003 R2 SP1 ISO. Both have valid license keys attached to your subscription.

b) archive.org Microsoft archive

Microsoft's older shipping ISOs were archived to the Internet Archive's Software Library:

https://archive.org/details/microsoft https://archive.org/details/Microsoft-Visual-Studio-Express-2005

(The Express SKU has the same cl.exe as Pro; SP1 builds match byte-for-byte across SKUs because only the IDE differs.)

These items typically carry a "Microsoft Permitted Items" license note in the details page — Microsoft has historically allowed archive.org to redistribute end-of-life Visual Studio shipped products. Confirm the license note is present before downloading.

c) Microsoft's own legacy download URLs (rare survivors)

Microsoft has periodically purged old download endpoints, but a few SP1 patch installers still exist on Microsoft Update Catalog:

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=Visual+Studio+2005+SP1

These are patches, not full installers — useful only if you already have the RTM release.

d) Community redistribution (LEGO Island decomp's setup)

The LEGO Island decomp has a documented setup-msvc.sh recipe that points at known-good, Microsoft-licensed redistributable bundles. We cross-reference their setup notes:

https://github.com/isledecomp/isle/blob/master/docs/dev_setup.md

Match their procurement steps; their MSVC version is similar (MSVC 4.20 / VC ~6 era for the original 1997 binary, but they have sister projects on VS 2005). When in doubt, copy LEGO Island's recipe verbatim.

3. Layout for tools/cl-wine.sh

Pick a stable path outside the repo (don't commit MSVC binaries) and export MSVC_TOOLCHAIN_DIR:

export MSVC_TOOLCHAIN_DIR="$HOME/sdk/msvc-2005-sp1"

Lay it out as:

$MSVC_TOOLCHAIN_DIR/
├── VC/
│   ├── bin/
│   │   ├── cl.exe
│   │   ├── link.exe
│   │   ├── c1.dll
│   │   ├── c1xx.dll
│   │   ├── c2.dll
│   │   └── mspdb80.dll
│   ├── include/        # C/C++ + STL headers
│   └── lib/            # libcmt.lib etc.
└── PSDK/               # Platform SDK 2003 R2 SP1
    ├── Include/
    └── Lib/

cl-wine.sh will set INCLUDE to VC/include;PSDK/Include and LIB to VC/lib;PSDK/Lib automatically. Adjust the paths in cl-wine.sh if your layout differs.

4. Wine on Apple Silicon

Wine runs x86 PE binaries on Apple Silicon via Rosetta 2. Two practical Wine builds:

  • wine-stable (brew install --cask wine-stable) — vanilla upstream Wine. Slowest but most predictable.
  • CrossOver Wine — what xiv1point0-apple-silicon-installer uses for the FFXIV game itself. Already configured in the workspace; can reuse the same prefix for compilation if desired.

For meteor-decomp's compilation needs, vanilla Wine is fine and simpler. No DX9, no audio, no graphics — just process invocation on a small set of .exe and .dll files.

brew install --cask wine-stable
wine --version  # expect wine-9.x or wine-10.x

# One-time prefix init (32-bit, since cl.exe is i386)
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-msvc2005" WINEARCH=win32 wine cmd /c exit

Then cl-wine.sh sets WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine-msvc2005 so the compilation prefix is isolated from any other Wine usage.

5. Verifying on the Rosetta Stone function

Phase 2's exit criterion is a single, hand-translated function from the binary that compiles to byte-identical bytes when run through cl-wine.sh with the chosen flags.

# 1. Pick the candidate function (tools/find_rosetta.py picks one for you).
python3 tools/find_rosetta.py ffxivgame
# → build/rosetta/ffxivgame.top.txt

# 2. Hand-translate it to C in src/ffxivgame/_rosetta/<sym>.cpp.
#    (One has been pre-staged based on Ghidra's first-pass decompile;
#    you'll need to revise it.)

# 3. Compile + diff.
make rosetta

# Iterate compiler flags in Makefile until objdiff reports zero delta.

Common flag-search axes (in rough order of likelihood to be the culprit):

Knob Try
Optimization /O2 then /Ox, /O1
Frame pointer /Oy vs /Oy-
String pooling /GF
Function-level linking /Gy
Stack security cookies /GS vs /GS-
RTTI /GR (almost certainly on)
Exception handling /EHsc
wchar_t builtin /Zc:wchar_t vs /Zc:wchar_t-
Standard for /Zc:forScope
CRT linkage /MT vs /MD (/MT for ship games)
Float model /fp:precise (default)
Inline expansion /Ob2 (default at /O2)

Lock in the matching set as MSVC_FLAGS= in the Makefile once the Rosetta Stone matches.

6. What if VS 2005 SP1 can't be procured?

Drop to functional decomp (PLAN.md §3 — the hybrid model). The matching tier is only a strict win for net/sqpack/file-format modules where byte-equivalence is unambiguous correctness. The bulk of the decomp value (game-state structures, battle math, director framework) lives in the functional tier and doesn't need a matching toolchain.

This is the fallback if Phase 2 stalls indefinitely on procurement. Phase 3 (net layer) can run as functional decomp first, with matching upgraded later when the toolchain is in place.