Compiling Xnp2 PC98 Emulator on Ubuntu Linux

I've taken an interest recently in early 90s Japanese computers and their games, especially the PC98.  Unfortunately most PC98 emulation is focused around Windows and much of the documentation is in Japanese.  Xnp2 is a Unix port of the Neko Project 2 emulator which is only Windows compatible.  I was having trouble getting Xnp2 to compile under Ubuntu 20.04, and for a while was just using Neko in a Windows VM.

After a great deal of scouring the web and looking through a few non English language websites, I was able to compile it from the git repository in a fairly straight forward manner. I've decided to document this succinctly here in case others encounter the same difficulty.

Without further ado, the following commands got Xnp2 compiled and installed for me:

$ sudo apt install build-essential nasm libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxxf86vm-dev
$ git clone https://github.com/nonakap/xnp2
$ cd xnp2/x11
$ ./autogen.sh --enable-ia32
$ ./configure --enable-ia32
$ make
$ sudo make install

Please note that this was successfully done at commit hash  9a0baa69548cfa00c9f57ba26be8fc54e8f55272.

From there you should be able to start the emulator by entering xnp2 at the console.

I found when I started the emulator that the Japanese text did not initially appear.  This can be resolved by downloading the font file here, extracting it, and then pointing the emulator to it with via File > Font in the UI menu.

Unfortunately at first glance it would seem Xnp2 is not quite as accurate as Neko, but see how your mileage goes.

Note that this compilation was done on a more recent code base than the released version 0.86 on the official Xnp2 website.  If you want to compile 0.86 on Ubuntu 20.04, you need to apply the patch files which are also on that page.

 

For some great general information about the PC98, how to configure and use the emulator, and some of the games available, I highly recommend this link.

Also, this is a really great article if you want to generally learn about Japanese retro computers.  There is a fascinating history there with many important developers (Enix, Hideo Kojima, etc) having their start on these machines and many awesome games you've never heard of.