It is a descendant of [higan](https://github.com/higan-emu/higan) and [bsnes](https://github.com/bsnes-emu/bsnes/), and focuses on accuracy and preservation.
ares supports additional audio drivers besides the ALSA drivers included above. Installing these additional packages will allow them to be selected in Settings > Drivers:
By default, GTK3 is used, but support for GTK2 is available. You will need to install the additional package `libgtk2.0-dev` as well as specifying the command line option `hiro=gtk2` at compile time.
If you would like to use SDL for input (e.g. for using a controller), you will need to install the `libsdl2-dev` and `libsdl2-2.0-0` packages and perform a clean build of ares.
You should then be able to select SDL for input in the Settings > Drivers menu.
clang++ is now the preferred compiler for ares. If clang is detected on Windows/macOS/BSD, it will be selected by default. On Linux and other platforms, g++ remains the default if present. To build with clang, it is necessary to install both the `clang` and `lld` packages. If you would like to manually specify a compiler, you can use the following option: `compiler=[g++|clang++]`
If you do not want to include librashader support, you can pass the following option to the `make` command to skip these requirements using: `librashader=false`
Librashader requires rust in order to build. You can install it with the following command:
```
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source ~/.cargo/env
rustup toolchain install nightly
```
In order to build librashader, change into the `ares/thirdparty/librashader` directory and run the script `build-librashader.sh`
Note that once the build completes, it will instruct you to run three copy commands to install the library on your system. These paths may be different depending on Linux distribution.
from the MSYS2 MSYS terminal should setup everything you need to compile ares. Note that in order to compile, you will want to be in a MINGW64 terminal window after install and setup is complete.
##### Building with clang
clang is available through Visual Studio (or Build Tools for Visual Studio) through its installer and can be used to build ares. You will still need to supply GNU make in this instance. MSYS2 also offers a clang environment. You will want to make sure you select the clangw64 option during installation of MSYS2 which should provide and additional CLANG64 pre-configured environment. Install the clang toolchain package from the MSYS2 terminal:
When building with clang, by default symbols will be generated for debug builds using an MSVC compatible format (CodeView) for use with Windows debugging tools. In order to generate GDB compatible symbols, specify the following option: `symformat=gdb`
ares has introduced support for the [librashader](https://github.com/SnowflakePowered/librashader) library, which is a preprocessor, compiler, and runtime for RetroArch 'slang' shaders. If you are not interested in working with librashaders, you can pass the following option to the `make` command to skip these requirements using: `librashader=false`
Building the librashader library on Windows requires Rust. Follow these steps to prepare your system and build the librashader library:
1. Download and execute the rustup-init.exe installer from: https://rustup.rs/
2. Open a new Windows terminal and run the following commands:
```
rustup toolchain install nightly
rustup default nightly
```
3. With Rust successfully installed, you will need to update your PATH environment variable within your MSYS2 environment. In an MSYS2 shell, open $HOME/.bash_profile and append something like the following (note you will need to replace both instances of %USER_NAME% with the real user name you used to install Rust):
```
if [ -d "/C/Users/%USER_NAME%/.cargo/bin" ] ; then
PATH="/C/Users/%USER_NAME%/.cargo/bin:${PATH}"
fi
```
4. Open a new MSYS2 based shell for the compiler you are using (MinGW64|CLANG64|UCRT64), execute `rustup` to validate the path is set properly within your MSYS2 environment.
5. In your MSYS2 compiler shell, `cd` into the `ares/thirdparty/librashader` directory
6. Execute the build script, build should complete successfully:
```
./build-librashader.sh
```
This only needs to be done once, or anytime the librashader library is updated. Once built, ares will build with librashader support by default requiring no additional flags.
`-j#` indicates number of parallel build processes, and shouldn't be set higher than N-1 cores on your processor. Specifying this option can significantly decrease the time to build this project. There are multiple build types available and it defaults to an 'optimized' build. Build types can be specified using: `build=[debug|stable|release|minified|optimized]`
There is a single binary produced at the end of compilation which can be found in `desktop-ui/out`. On OS's besides Linux, the `Database`&`Shader` directories are copied over here as well. On Linux, running `make install` after compilation will copy these directories and binary into suitable locations (see desktop-ui/GNUmakefile for details). Alternatively, these directories can be copied from `thirdparty/slang-shaders/*` into a `Shader` directory, and by copying `mia/Database/*`
