gtav-sourcecode-build-guide

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📜 GTA V Source Code Build Guide [UPDATED]

This tutorial will guide you through compiling and setting up GTA 5 source code
Also this tutorial is made by yungDoom itself and it is the latest guide.

Contents

  1. Prerequisites
    1. Base
    2. Dependencies
    3. Miscellaneous
    4. Prebuilt Files
  2. Prerequisites Setup
  3. Patching The Source Code
  4. Building Process
    1. Building The Game Binary/Executable
    2. Building Shaders
    3. Building Game Scripts
  5. Patching Game Assets
    1. Main Game Assets
    2. Modifying the RPF Files
  6. Running The Game
  7. BankRelease & Debug Controls
  8. Known Issues
  9. Setting up Visual Studio 2022 Patches
  10. Final Thoughts
  11. Credits

Prerequisites

Base

Dependencies

Miscellaneous

Prebuilt Files

[!NOTE] It is recommended to create a virtual machine, Although the build process can be done on your Real PC too!
in Windows, VMWare are recommended to run the Virtual Machine

Prerequisites Setup

  1. Install DirectX SDK June 2010
    • If you get error S1023, Uninstall Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable & Reinstall DirectX SDK - (June 2010).
  2. Install 7-Zip
  3. Install Visual Studio 2012 and Update 4 for Visual Studio 2012
    • Uncheck all optional components in the installer except “Microsoft Foundation Classes for C++” to save space due to none of them are needed for the build
  4. (OPTIONAL) Install Visual Studio 2022
    • Reminder: If you’re using Visual Studio 2022 Patches, You should need to download this.
    • You should select Desktop Development with C++ and .NET Desktop development and finally just select Universal Windows Platform Development from Workloads Tab
    • Enter to the Individual Components Tab and Search for Windows 11 SDK, C++ MFC for latest v143 build tools (x86 & x64), C++ ATL for latest v143 build tools (x86 & x64) and select them
  5. Install Incredibuild 4.0
    • If you encounter the error that the installer is “Blocked by your administrator”, follow these steps:
      1. Hold Shift and right click the incredibuild4_0.exe file, select “Copy as path”
      2. Open Command Prompt as Administrator
      3. Paste the path and press Enter
    • Select to install “Incredibuild Agent”, “Incredibuild Coordinator”, and the extension for Visual Studio
  6. Install OpenIV
  7. Create X:\ Drive by following the steps at the bottom:
    1. Open Command Prompt
    2. Create a new folder called “GTA” to the Desktop or anywhere that you want
    3. Run net use X: \\localhost\c$\<Path to working folder for build> /persistent:yes
      • Example: net use X: \\localhost\c$\Users\<username>\Desktop\GTA /persistent:yes
  8. Create the folder X:\gta5 and copy all folders from GTAVSP.7z\GTA V Source into it
  9. Right click the folder X:\gta5, select “Properties”, uncheck “Read-only”, click Apply then OK
  10. Open Command Prompt as Administrator and run the following commands, then close: 
    setx /m RS_TOOLSROOT X:\gta5\tools_ng
setx /m DXSDK_DIR "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010)"
setx /m RS_CODEBRANCH X:\gta5\src\dev_ng
setx /m RS_PROJECT gta5
setx RAGE_3RDPARTY X:\3rdParty\dev
  11. Put all the game files to the X:\gta5\titleupdate\dev_ng directory (OPTIONAL)
  12. To ensure changes are finalized, restart build machine/computer.

Patching The Source Code

  1. Open rush_patches-master.zip
  2. Copy game and rage folders to X:\gta5\src\dev_ng, make sure to overwrite when copying
  3. (OPTIONAL) To skip launcher requirement for running the game, copy game and rage folders from rush_patches-master.zip\OPTIONAL_FIXES to the same folder
  4. Copy all folders in dll_patches_x.zip to X:\gta5\tools_ng\bin, make sure to overwrite when copying
  5. (OPTIONAL) Extract Network Fix.zip and put these 2 files to x:\gta5\tools_ng\etc\globals, make sure to overwrite when copying
  6. (OPTIONAL) Install 3rdParty Folder, Extract and Put the folder to X:\.

By far, Your Folder Structure should look like this:

🖥️ X:
 ┣ 📂 3rdParty - (OPTIONAL)
 ┗ 📂 gta5
    ┣ 📂 src
    ┃ ┣ 📂 dev_ng
    ┣ 📂 script
    ┃ ┣ 📂 dev_ng 
    ┗ 📂 tools_ng

Building Process

Building The Game Binary/Executable

  1. Run X:\gta5\src\dev_ng\game\VS_Project\load_sln_unity_2012.bat
    • If prompted with “How do you want to open this file?”, check “Always use this app to open .sln files” and Select Visual Studio 2012 then click OK
  2. Once the solution loads, open the dropdown menu that says “Debug” at the top, select “Configuration Manager”
  3. Change “Active Solution Platform” to “x64” and close the configuration window
  4. Hold Ctrl key and click all projects under “GameLibs” and “Rage” folder, right-click and select “Properties”
  5. In the “Configuration” dropdown, select “All Configurations”
  6. Select C/C++ > All options, under “Look for options or switches”, search “err” and set “Treat Warnings as Errors” to “No (/WX-)”, then click “Apply” and “OK”
    • For faster compiles, search “mul” and set “Multiprocessor Compilation” to “Yes (/MP)”
      • If you get the error C1060: Compiler is out of heap space during build, come back to the above setting and turn it off
  7. Right-click the “game” project and select “Properties” and do step 5,6 again
  8. Change build the type at the top of the window from “Debug” to “BankRelease”
    • This Step is optional, you can build the game in “Debug” too but you will lost alot of performance
  9. At the top of the window, select Build > Build Solution and wait for build to finish
  10. Copy output binary to game folder.

If you confused, Watch this video:

https://github.com/P0L3NARUBA/gtav-sourcecode-build-guide/assets/146978592/a07cfd2e-a350-419e-ad9e-db6fc7a1ccff

[!WARNING] Building shaders and game scripts can be skipped using the prebuilt files above
For Shaders, Extract common.zip and just put the common folder to the Game Directory
For Scripts, Run OpenIV and put the script.rpf file to update2.rpf\x64\levels\gta5\script
These steps are here to allow modding or for those who prefer to build from source as much as possible.

Building Shaders

  1. Under “Shaders”, right click the “shaders_rc” project and click “Build”
  2. (OPTIONAL) Build low quality shaders
    1. Right click the “shaders_rc” project and click “Properties”
    2. Select Configuration Properties > NMake
    3. Under “General”, change all command lines from ending with win32_40.bat to ending with win32_40_lq.bat, then click “Apply” and “OK”
    4. Rebuild shaders and wait it to finish
  3. Copy X:\gta5\titleupdate\dev_ng\common to game directory.

Building Game Scripts

  1. Open Command Prompt and Run the following commands: 
    X:
cd X:\gta5\src\dev_ng
setenv
cd ..\..\tools_ng\bin\RageScriptEditor
ragScriptEditor
  2. In the editor, select File > Open Project and open X:\gta5\script\dev_ng\singleplayer\GTA5_SP.scproj
  3. Select Compiling > Intellibuild > Build Project and wait until the compiling process finishes
  4. Run OpenIV, select “Windows” under “Grand Theft Auto V”
  5. Select the game folder and click “Continue”
  6. Open <Game Directory>\update\update2.rpf\x64\levels\gta5\script
  7. Delete or move script.rpf
  8. Click the “Edit mode” button, and copy X:\gta5\titleupdate\dev_ng\x64\levels\gta5\script\script.rpf to the OpenIV window.

Patching Game Assets

Main Game Assets

  1. Install update.rpf and update2.rpf from GTA V build 2699 from Prerequisites List
  2. Put update.rpf and update2.rpf files to <Game Directory>\update\ folder
    • Dont forget to backup your old files from update folder.

Modifying the RPF Files

If you ever modify the RPF files, dont forget to encrpyt them
Here you can see how to do it:

  1. From rush_patches-master.zip, copy all files in the ARCHIVEFIX folder to a separate location
  2. Drag RPF file(s) onto ArchiveFix.exe
    • Don’t drag the both files at the same time, just drag one by one.

Running The Game

  1. Rename Original GTA Executable to LGTA5.exe and Rename your compiled executable to GTA5.exe
  2. In the game directory, create a file named launch.bat and add these contents: 
    cd %~dp0
GTA5.exe -noSocialClub -nokeyboardhook -nonetlogs
  3. (OPTIONAL) Add additional arguments:
    • -kbgame - Start game with game keyboard enabled
    • -output - Show console log of game, the game opens a little bit slow
    • -rag - Enable support for RAG, the internal game debugging tool
    • -ragUseOwnWindow - Use it with -rag parameter to make game run outside of RAG Render Window
    • DO NOT Forget to Launch RAG Before launching the game if u using any RAG parameters - -DoReleaseStartup - Start real Story Mode on launch, Ignore if it says unknown parameter/command
    • If you dont type this parameter, you will spawned in a random location as a random character with a random clothes - -sc_DisableForbiddenVehicleRemoval
    • This parameter allows DLC and Other Cars without getting removed - Additional standard game arguments can be added as well
    • Here is the almost all the arguments list
  4. (OPTIONAL) Launch RAG with the following commands in Command Prompt: 
    X:
cd X:\gta5\src\dev_ng
setenv
cd ..\..\tools_ng\bin\rag
rag
  5. Run launch.bat.

BankRelease & Debug Controls

Almost Every Controls & Keys

Setting up Visual Studio 2022 Patches (OPTIONAL)

After you compiled the game in VS2012, close your IDE and do these steps:

  1. Extract VBlSfKBylNQplMIPLL.zip and put everything to X:\gta5\src\dev_ng
  2. Open Visual Studio 2022
  3. Change every project version Visual Studio 2012 to Visual Studio 2022 if they didnt come as VS2022
  4. Compile.

Known Issues

Fatal Error: Unable to create default effect ‘common:/shaders/im’, cannot continue.

If u didn’t put the shaders to the game directory or you dont have the low quality shaders, then this error may appear.
Just try these solutions in order to make the game work:

Solution 1:

Just Simply Put the shaders to the game directory and compile the low quality shaders by following tutorial.

Solution 2:

Just make your shaders quality “High” and dont lower that.
To do this, Follow this steps:

  1. Go To \Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V
  2. Open settings.xml
  3. Change <ShaderQuality value="0" /> To <ShaderQuality value="1" />
  4. Save the file and Done!

Couldn’t connect to RAG.exe. Keep trying?

Just Simply Open the RAG Manually, then start launch.bat.

RagScriptEditor crashing while at building cache.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading my precious tutorial, if u liked it please consider starring or forking the repository.

Credits