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Build Windows

Last Updated on 6 Aug 2022

This is a stand-alone guide for creating your first Vircadia build for Windows 64-bit.

Note: We are now using Visual Studio 2019 and Qt 5.15.2. If you are upgrading from previous versions, do a clean uninstall of those versions before going through this guide.

Note: The prerequisites will require about 10 GB of space on your drive. You will also need a system with at least 8GB of main memory.

Step 1. Visual Studio & Python 3.x

If you don't have Community or Professional edition of Visual Studio 2019, download Visual Studio Community 2019. If you have Visual Studio 2017, you need to download Visual Studio 2019.

When selecting components, check "Desktop development with C++".

If you do not already have a Python 3.x development environment installed and want to install it with Visual Studio, check "Python Development". If you already have Visual Studio installed and need to add Python, open the "Add or remove programs" control panel and find the "Microsoft Visual Studio Installer". Select it and click "Modify". In the installer, select "Modify" again, then check "Python Development" and allow the installer to apply the changes.

Visual Studio 2019

On the right on the Summary toolbar, select the following components.

  • MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ X64/x86 build tools
  • MSVC v141 - VS 2017 C++ x64/x86 build tools
  • MSVC v140 - VS 2015 C++ build tools (v14.00)

Step 1a. Alternate Python

If you do not wish to use the Python installation bundled with Visual Studio, you can download the installer from here. Ensure that you get version 3.6.6 or higher.

Step 2. Python Dependencies

In an administrator command-line that can access Python's pip you will need to run the following command:

pip install distro

If you do not use an administrator command-line, you will get errors.

Step 3. Installing CMake

Download and install the latest version of CMake 3.15.

  • Note that earlier versions of CMake will work, but there is a specific bug related to the interaction of Visual Studio 2019 and CMake versions prior to 3.15 that will cause Visual Studio to rebuild far more than it needs to on every build

Download the file named win64-x64 Installer from the CMake Website. You can access the installer on this 3.15 Version page. During installation, make sure to check "Add CMake to system PATH for all users" when prompted.

Step 4. Node.JS and NPM

Install version 10.15.0 LTS (or greater) of Node.JS and NPM.

Step 5. (Optional) Install Qt

If you would like to compile Qt instead of using the precompiled package provided during CMake, you can do so now. Install version 5.12.3 of Qt, as well as the following packages:

  • Qt 5.15.2
  • MSVC 2019 64-bit
  • Qt WebEngine
  • Qt Script (Deprecated)

For convenience, you may also want the "Qt Debug Information" and "Sources" packages.

You'll need to create the environment variable that CMake uses to find your system's Qt install.

To create this variable:

  • Navigate to 'Edit the System Environment Variables' through the Start menu.
  • Click on 'Environment Variables'
  • Select 'New'
  • Set "Variable name" to QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
  • Set "Variable value" to %QT_INSTALL_DIR%\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\lib\cmake, where %QT_INSTALL_DIR% is the directory you specified for Qt's installation. The default is C:\Qt.

Step 6. Clone the Vircadia repository.

Clone the project repository, including submodules. This can be done with a single command in git bash:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/vircadia/vircadia.git

Step 7. Create VCPKG environment variable

In the next step, you will use CMake to build Vircadia. By default, the CMake process builds dependency files in Windows' %TEMP% directory, which is periodically cleared by the operating system. To prevent you from having to re-build the dependencies in the event that Windows clears that directory, we recommend that you create a HIFI_VCPKG_BASE environment variable linked to a directory somewhere on your machine. That directory will contain all dependency files until you manually remove them.

To create this variable:

  • Navigate to 'Edit the System Environment Variables' Through the Start menu.
  • Click on 'Environment Variables'
  • Select 'New'
  • Set "Variable name" to HIFI_VCPKG_BASE
  • Set "Variable value" to any directory that you have control over.

Step 8. Running CMake to Generate Build Files

Run Command Prompt from Start and run the following commands: cd "%VIRCADIA_DIR%" mkdir build cd build

Visual Studio 2019

Run cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64.

Where %VIRCADIA_DIR% is the directory for the Vircadia repository.

Step 9. Making a Build

Open %VIRCADIA_DIR%\build\vircadia.sln using Visual Studio.

Change the Solution Configuration (menu ribbon under the menu bar, next to the green play button) from "Debug" to "Release" for best performance.

Run from the menu bar Build > Build Solution.

Step 10. Testing Interface

Create another environment variable (see Step #3)

  • Set "Variable name": _NO_DEBUG_HEAP
  • Set "Variable value": 1

Restart Visual Studio again.

In Visual Studio, right-click "interface" under the Apps folder in Solution Explorer and select "Set as Startup Project". Run from the menu bar Debug > Start Debugging.

Now, you should have a full build of Vircadia and be able to run the Interface using Visual Studio.

Note: You can also run Interface by launching it from command line or File Explorer from %VIRCADIA_DIR%\build\interface\Release\interface.exe

Troubleshooting

For any problems after Step #7, first try this:

  • Delete your locally cloned copy of the Vircadia repository
  • Restart your computer
  • Redownload the repository
  • Restart directions from Step #7

CMake gives you the same error message repeatedly after the build fails

Remove CMakeCache.txt found in the %VIRCADIA_DIR%\build directory.

CMake can't find OpenSSL

Remove CMakeCache.txt found in the %VIRCADIA_DIR%\build directory. Verify that your HIFI_VCPKG_BASE environment variable is set and pointing to the correct location. Verify that the file ${HIFI_VCPKG_BASE}/installed/x64-windows/include/openssl/ssl.h exists.