Building for Windows

Prerequisites

• Windows 7 SP1 or higher, 64-bit version
• Visual Studio 2019
  • You can use any edition of VS (Community Edition is free)
  • Easiest to just choose "Desktop development with C++" workload
  • However, minimum required to get source and build are:
    • Git for Windows (Note: The standalone git installer is more recent and is compatible with VS)
    • C++ core features
    • Latest MSVC C++ build tools (x64/x86 and/or ARM64)
    • Latest Windows SDK
    • C++ CMake tools for Windows
  • Recommended for development / debugging (included in workload)
    • Just-In-Time debugger
    • C++ profiling tools (pulls in graphics debugging features)
    • Test Adapter for Google Test

To install all of the above on the command line, you can use something like: vs_Community.exe --passive --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NativeDesktop;includeRecommended --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Git --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.ARM64

Get and Build Dolphin

Clone

• Windows requires pulling in some submodules, so use git clone --recursive to clone dolphin from the main repo or your fork.
• If you have already cloned the directory without pulling in the submodules run git submodule update --init to initialize the submodules.

Building

1. Open the folder you cloned Dolphin into.
   
2. Select the target you'd like to build:
   
3. Select Dolphin.exe as a startup item
   
4. Press F7 or choose Build > Build Solution from the menu bar.