I’m trying to set up the Atari environment for OpenAI Gym on my Windows 10 machine but running into problems. The basic OpenAI Gym installation worked fine on this computer.
When I try to install using pip install gym[atari], the installation fails during the makefile execution step. I can see that both cmake and make tools are properly installed on my system and available in the command line.
Has anyone encountered similar installation issues with the Atari environment on Windows? What could be causing the makefile to fail even when the required build tools are present?
I faced a similar issue while trying to set up the Atari environment on Windows. In my case, the problem stemmed from a missing Microsoft Visual C++ compiler. Despite having cmake and make installed, it was essential to have the C++ build tools from Visual Studio. After installing the Visual Studio Build Tools and ensuring that the C++ option was checked, I was able to run pip install gym[atari] successfully. Make sure to restart your command prompt afterward for the changes to take effect.
This makefile issue usually comes from messed up build environment paths. Windows can be really finicky with dependency compilation for Atari ROMs and the ALE wrapper, even when cmake and make are properly installed. I’d skip pip entirely and use conda instead - conda install -c conda-forge gym-atari handles Windows build dependencies way better. Also double-check that your PATH has the right build tool paths and run everything from an admin command prompt. Conda fixed it for me after pip kept throwing the same makefile errors over and over.
try downgrading gym first - newer versions sometimes break atari installs on windows. I had luck with pip install gym==0.21.0 then doing the atari install. also make sure your antivirus isn’t blocking the compile process - that had me stuck for hours lol
Had the same makefile issue with Atari on Windows. The problem’s usually Windows dependencies not linking right during the build. Here’s what fixed it for me: install wheel first with pip install wheel, then run pip install --no-cache-dir gym[atari]. The no-cache flag stops Windows from using old failed builds that mess with the makefile. Also check that your system architecture matches your Python install - mixing 32-bit and 64-bit stuff causes weird makefile errors that look completely unrelated.
This makefile issue sounds like conflicting Python environments or messed up environment variables. I hit the same problem last year - turned out I had multiple Python installations fighting each other. Fixed it by creating a clean virtual environment and reinstalling everything from scratch. Also, check for leftover gym installations. Run pip uninstall gym first, then try the atari install again. Windows loves caching corrupted build files that break makefiles even when your tools are fine.