AI Bots II Installation Manual


Before you install AI Bots II, you need to know a few things about the program.

This program is constructed so that it can compile both in Windows and Linux. You need to first of all decide which platform you are going to use to develop your bot. We suggest that you use the Linux platform as far as possible, since the program performs far better on Linux. We have also noted some timing problems in the Windows version. In any case, if you are using this program to participate in Shaastra 2003 to be held at IIT Madras, you should note that the final event will be run on the Linux platform.

There is a choice of three display clients for you. They are, in order of prettiness (and hence also in system requirements) -

Read on to find out how to install and use AI Bots II.

Installing AI Bots II

For Linux:
  1. After downloading aibots-2.xxx.tar.gz, type tar -xvzf aibots-2.xxx.tar.gz
  2. Go to aibots-2.xxx/ directory and type any one of the below:
    ./buildtext
    ./buildgl
    ./buildalleg
    They build the text, GL and Allegro displays respectively.

For Windows:

Displays and their library requirements

Platform

Display

Comments (plus points and minus points)

Libraries required

Linux
(highly recommended)
Text
  • Requires practically no extra libraries to run. +++++
  • Highly convenient for developing AI codes. +++
  • Does not display the whole area of the map. --
  1. nCurses
GL graphics
  • It has good looks. ++++
  • Displays the whole area of the map. ++
  • Needs 3 additional libraries to compile and run. ----
  1. Xfree
  2. Mesa
  3. Mesa-demos
Allegro graphics
  • Has better looks than the text display. ++
  • Needs 1 additional library to compile and run. --
  1. Allegro for Linux
Windows Text
  • Needs only one additional library. +
  • Poor keyboard response. -----
  • Shows only 18% of the whole map. ----
  1. PDCurses for Windows
GL graphics
  • Good looks. ++++
  • Needs 2 additional libraries. ---
  1. glut
Allegro graphics
  • Shows the whole map. +++
  • Needs 1 additional library. --
  1. Allegro for windows

List of libraries for Linux

  1. nCurses
  2. Xfree
  3. Mesa
  4. Mesa-demos
  5. Allegro for Linux

List of libraries for windows

To use the distributed AiBots Windows binaries, do the following (This is much easier and faster than building from source).

  • PDCurses for windows
  • Allegro for Windows
  • Glut for Windows

    To build the Aibots executables from the source you will need to do the following :

  • PDCurses for windows
  • Allegro for Windows
  • Glut for Windows