Building lime.ndll on Apple Silicon Mac

[tobil4sk]

Created this to keep track of the status of native Apple Silicon builds of the lime.ndll.

Todo:

• SDL submodule fix (see openfl/libsdl@fa51fcb). develop branch is missing this patch, but this is applied in Dev-8.2.0, in f200ecd
• PNG submodule fix (applied in Dev-8.2.0 in f3aff7f)
• Fix lime.ndll build for Apple Silicon #1642
  This PR includes the following submodule patches, for the Dev-8.2.0 branch:
  • Fix pixman build for m1 libpixman#2
  • Add conditions for Mac ARM64 libopenal#1
• Hxcpp patch is also required for the ndll name to be correct: Fix arm64 library names on mac HaxeFoundation/hxcpp#1088
• Update lime to load the ndll from the correct path: Use correct ndll loader path on mac arm64 #1753
  • Update swf to load the ndll from the correct path: Use correct ndll loader path on mac arm64 swf#30
• Set HXCPP_ARM64 by default when building on Apple Silicon Mac #1752
• Add /opt/homebrew/lib as an rpath for arm64 mac builds of lime.ndll: lime.ndll fails to load libneko.dylib with certain homebrew installs of haxe/neko #1750

After applying these patches, it is possible to build the ndll and build/run projects as expected.

[player-03]

For any changes involving submodules, please start with the 8.2.0 branch and submit changes to that branch.

The branch includes a build guide that may help debug, but still feel free to ask if not.

[tobil4sk]

Created a new branch based on 8.2.0 as suggested. The linker error was due to a problem with the libpixman patch, which I have explained in more detail here: openfl/libpixman#1.

I've created a new PR with the 8.2.0 based branch, which allows for a successful build of the lime.ndll on arm64 Mac with haxelib run lime rebuild mac -DHXCPP_ARM64: #1642. This also requires the most recent development version of hxcpp. I've pasted the installation instructions in case anyone is interested:

Expand for detailed installation instructions

# install updated hxcpp with arm64 building support
haxelib git hxcpp https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/hxcpp.git

# clone forked version of lime from PR #1642
git clone https://github.com/soccertutor/lime.git --branch fix/m1-build-ndll --recursive

# set lime library path
haxelib dev lime ./lime

# rebuild lime
haxelib run lime rebuild mac -DHXCPP_ARM64

Since the ndll is still loaded from the Mac64 path for now, we had to move the new arm64 binary:

cd $(haxelib libpath lime)
rm ndll/Mac64/lime.ndll
cp ndll/MacArm64/lime-64.ndll ndll/Mac64/lime.ndll

We also ran into this issue: #1750. We managed to work around it by creating symlinks in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib, see:
https://brettterpstra.com/2022/09/28/homebrew-and-slash-usr-slash-local-slash-bin-on-m1-macs/.

UPDATE: It looks like /usr/local/lib may no longer be a default path for dyld anymore, see #1750.

Despite having to use these awkward workarounds, openfl test mac -DHXCPP_ARM64 now successfully runs our project. UPDATE: Seems to only build successfully with the -clean flag.

[JonnycatMeow]

how whould i build the macos arm64 dll on a x86_64 and i have xcode

[ido-pluto]

For some reason after installing the lime fork and doing all the steps, I got a segmentation fault

openfl test html5 -DHXCPP_ARM64
Could not link to neko.
Called from lime/_internal/backend/native/NativeCFFI.hx line 613
Called from lime/system/CFFI.hx line 171
Called from lime/system/CFFI.hx line 294
Uncaught exception - Segmentation fault 

If I put the MacArm64/lime-64.ndll into ndll/Mac/lime.ndll
Is seems to work, but only for:

openfl test mac -DHXCPP_ARM64

[tobil4sk]

openfl test html5 -DHXCPP_ARM64

@ido-pluto The html5 target doesn't use hxcpp or lime.ndll so there is no need to build here with the -DHXCPP_ARM64 flag. However, it does seem odd that this causes a segmentation fault, there could be something wrong with the conditional compilation in my PR.

[player-03]

Lime does use the ndll when building, which could explain the error.

If so, there's a second solution: the -eval flag skips lime.ndll when building. The flag was only recently merged into 8.2.0-Dev, so you'd need to pull that first.

[bguiz]

👋 Ran into this as well - any closer to this being resolved?

[ido-pluto]

Use the x86 version of haxe without brew (from the website). This works without any issue

[bguiz]

Ah will give this a go - thanks!

Use the x86 version of haxe without brew (from the website).

Related: Any chance we could get the x86 version on homebrew?

[joshtynjala]

Related: Any chance we could get the x86 version on homebrew?

I learned a while back that there are now two different versions of Homebrew. One for Intel and one for Apple Silicon, and you can actually install both on the same computer.

I needed the Intel version on my M1 Mac to locally build HashLink binaries a while back, and I mentioned what I did to install Intel Hombrew on the Haxe forums. Maybe it'll help you out.

https://community.haxe.org/t/compiling-hashlink-on-macos-apple-silicon/3150

[tobil4sk]

Now that the PRs have been merged, it is possible to build lime.ndll on apple silicon and build and run projects, with the following requirements:

• Universal mac build of haxe (4.3.5 or above), or install via arm64 homebrew.
• Lime from git:

haxelib git lime https://github.com/openfl/lime

• swf from git

haxelib git swf https://github.com/openfl/swf

• hxcpp from git

haxelib git hxcpp https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/hxcpp

Then run:

lime rebuild swf
lime rebuild mac

So I think it's time to close this issue!

[tobil4sk]

how whould i build the macos arm64 dll on a x86_64 and i have xcode

Also, in the develop branch you can now pass the -arm64 flag to do this:

lime rebuild mac -arm64

Same requirements as above (particularly for hxcpp).

[Just-Feeshy]

Love to see this completed