Reducing your executable size

Some people complain that Allegro produces very large executables. This is certainly true: a simple "hello world" program will be about 200k. But don't worry, it is a relatively fixed overhead and won't increase as your program gets larger. As George Foot so succinctly put it, anyone who is concerned about the ratio between library and program code should just get to work and write more program code to catch up :-)

Having said that, there are several things you can do to make your programs smaller:

For starters, read the djgpp FAQ section 8.15, and take note of the -s switch and DJP executable compressor. And don't forget to compile your program with optimisation enabled!
If your program is only going to run in a limited number of graphics modes, you can specify which graphics drivers you would like to include with the code:
```
   BEGIN_GFX_DRIVER_LIST
      driver1
      driver2
      etc...
   END_GFX_DRIVER_LIST
```
where the driver names are any of the defines:
```
   GFX_DRIVER_VBEAF
   GFX_DRIVER_VGA
   GFX_DRIVER_MODEX
   GFX_DRIVER_VESA3
   GFX_DRIVER_VESA2L
   GFX_DRIVER_VESA2B
   GFX_DRIVER_XTENDED
   GFX_DRIVER_VESA1
```
This construct must be included in only one of your C source files (_not_ a header file!). The ordering of the names is important, because the autodetection routine works down from the top of the list until it finds the first driver that is able to support the requested mode. I suggest you stick to the default ordering given above, and simply delete whatever entries you aren't going to use.
As a rule, removing the MODEX and XTENDED drivers will save a fair amount of space, as will removing the VESA and VBE/AF drivers if you are only going to use standard VGA modes.
If your program doesn't need to use all the possible color depths, you can specify which pixel formats you want to support with the code:
```
   BEGIN_COLOR_DEPTH_LIST
      depth1
      depth2
      etc...
   END_COLOR_DEPTH_LIST
```
where the color depth names are any of the defines:
```
   COLOR_DEPTH_8
   COLOR_DEPTH_15
   COLOR_DEPTH_16
   COLOR_DEPTH_24
   COLOR_DEPTH_32
```
Removing any of the color depths will save quite a bit of space, with the exception of the 15 and 16 bit modes: these share a great deal of code, so if you are including one of them, there is no reason not to use both. Be warned that if you try to use a color depth which isn't in this list, your program will crash horribly!
In the same way as the above, you can specify which sound drivers you want to support with the code:
```
   BEGIN_DIGI_DRIVER_LIST
      driver1
      driver2
      etc...
   END_DIGI_DRIVER_LIST
```
using the digital sound driver defines:
```
   DIGI_DRIVER_SOUNDSCAPE
   DIGI_DRIVER_AUDIODRIVE
   DIGI_DRIVER_SB
```
and for the MIDI music:
```
   BEGIN_MIDI_DRIVER_LIST
      driver1
      driver2
      etc...
   END_MIDI_DRIVER_LIST
```
using the MIDI driver defines:
```
   MIDI_DRIVER_AWE32
   MIDI_DRIVER_DIGMID
   MIDI_DRIVER_ADLIB
   MIDI_DRIVER_MPU
   MIDI_DRIVER_SB_OUT
```
If you are going to use either of these constructs, you must use both. If you only want to include digital sound drivers, simply write DECLARE_MIDI_DRIVER_LIST() to prevent the inclusion of any music drivers at all.
Likewise for the joystick drivers, you can declare an inclusion list:
```
   BEGIN_JOYSTICK_DRIVER_LIST
      driver1
      driver2
      etc...
   END_JOYSTICK_DRIVER_LIST
```
using the joystick driver defines:
```
   JOYSTICK_DRIVER_STANDARD
   JOYSTICK_DRIVER_SIDEWINDER
   JOYSTICK_DRIVER_GAMEPAD_PRO
   JOYSTICK_DRIVER_SNESPAD
   JOYSTICK_DRIVER_WINGWARRIOR
```
The standard driver includes support for the dual joysticks, increased numbers of buttons, Flightstick Pro, and Wingman Extreme, because these are all quite minor variations on the basic code.
If you are _really_ serious about this size, thing, have a look at the top of allegro.h and you will see the lines:
```
   #define ALLEGRO_COLOR16
   #define ALLEGRO_COLOR24
   #define ALLEGRO_COLOR32
```
If you comment out any of these definitions and then rebuild the library, you will get a version without any support for the absent color depths, which will be even smaller than using the DECLARE_COLOR_DEPTH_LIST() macro. Removing the ALLEGRO_COLOR16 define will get rid of the support for both 15 and 16 bit hicolor modes, since these share a lot of the same code.

If you are distributing a copy of the setup program along with your game, you may be able to get a dramatic size reduction by merging the setup code into your main program, so that only one copy of the Allegro routines will need to be linked. To do this, rename the main() function from setup.c to something like setup_main(), link setup.c and setupdat.s into your program, and add a switch (eg. -setup command line option) that will call setup_main() instead of your main program code. After compressing the executable, this will probably save you about 200k compared to having two separate programs for the setup and the game itself.

Back to Contents