Build Windows
Last Updated on 15 Apr 2021
This is a stand-alone guide for creating your first Overte 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. (Optional) Node.JS and NPM
Install version 10.15.0 LTS (or greater) of Node.JS and NPM. This is required to build the server-console, hifi-screenshare, jsdoc, and for javascript console autocompletion.
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 isC:\Qt
.
Step 6. (Optional) Create VCPKG environment variable
In the next step, you will use CMake to build Overte. 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.
Additionally, if you have Visual Studio 2019 installed and only Visual Studio 2019 (i.e., you do not have Visual Studio 2017 installed) you must add an additional environment variable HIFI_VCPKG_BOOTSTRAP
that will fix a bug in our vcpkg
pre-build step.
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_BOOTSTRAP
Set "Variable value" to
1
Step 7. Running CMake to Generate Build Files
These instructions only apply to Visual Studio 2019.
Automatic
There is a batch file to automatically run the commands below for ease of use.
winprepareVS19.bat
Manual
Run The Command Prompt from Start and run the following commands:
cd "%OVERTE_DIR%"
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64
Where %OVERTE_DIR%
is the directory for the Overte repository.
Step 8. Making a Build
Open %OVERTE_DIR%\build\overte.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 9. 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 Overte 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 %OVERTE_DIR%\build\interface\Release\interface.exe
Fehlersuche
For any problems after Step #7, first try this:
Delete your locally cloned copy of the Overte 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 %OVERTE_DIR%\build
directory.
CMake can't find OpenSSL
Remove CMakeCache.txt
found in the %OVERTE_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.