System Dependencies

Most dependencies for the Windows build on Monado are handled by vcpkg. However, some are not installable or usable (in the way we want) through there, so they require separate installation. For each, the command line to install with "winget" (built in to at least Windows 11, and possibly newer builds of Windows 10) and/or scoop are provided below. Use whichever one you are more comfortable with. (Scoop commands may require adding the "extras" bucket.)

CMake
- winget install Kitware.CMake
- scoop install cmake
- Recently, bundled with Visual Studio in a path like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe which gets added to your PATH in a Visual Studio command prompt/PowerShell.
Python 3.x
- winget install Python.Python.3
- scoop install python
Vulkan SDK
- winget install KhronosGroup.VulkanSDK
- scoop install vulkan
Ninja (build tool, recommended but not strictly required)
- Not available from winget
- scoop install ninja
- Recently, bundled with Visual Studio in a path like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\Ninja\ninja.exe which gets added to your PATH in a Visual Studio command prompt/PowerShell.

You will also need Visual Studio. Most current development is happening with 2022, though it should also build with 2019. (Work on Monado might meet the requirements for Microsoft's no-charge Visual Studio Community license - see the VS Community License Terms and talk to your lawyer if unsure, this is not legal advice.)

We should be able to build using LLVM/Clang using libc++ instead of the MSVC standard library, but this hasn't been widely tested.

Configuring the build tree

The main points to note are that:

If building against a normal clone/checkout of vcpkg, make sure that CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE is set to yourVcpkgDir\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake (substituting yourVcpkgDir as appropriate). This will put vcpkg in "manifest mode", and it will build and install the dependencies in vcpkg.json (in the source tree) into a directory in the build tree automatically.
- If you have run .\vcpkg integrate install in your vcpkg directory, this toolchain is added automatically when you "Open Folder" in Visual Studio for a folder containing CMake build scripts. So, in this case, just open the Monado source directory and everything will be set up automatically for you.
- On the CMake command line, this means passing something like "-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=yourVcpkgDir\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake" (quotation marks possibly required depending on your shell).
If building against "exported" dependencies from a vcpkg install (which can be used to share a build environment easily and reduce build times), you will also need to set CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE is set to yourVcpkgDir\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake (where yourVcpkgDir here is the exported directory you extract), and also set VCPKG_MANIFEST_MODE to OFF. Because exported dependencies from vcpkg do not include the vcpkg tool binary itself (or the port files, etc), we can't use manifest mode and must disable it. Instead, Monado will build against the dependencies installed in your exported tree. Open a Visual Studio Developer PowerShell terminal to your source dir before following one of the following two sections to generate your build tree.
- Without the vcpkg command-line tool, there's no "integrate" to let VS automatically know to take these steps, so you'll have to manually set the CMake variables in CMakeSettings.json. (VS has a GUI editor for it.)
- On the CMake command line, this means passing something like "-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=yourVcpkgDir\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake" -DVCPKG_MANIFEST_MODE=OFF (quotation marks possibly required depending on your shell).

For either of them, you may choose to add "-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=w:\someplace\else" (with a path of your choice) to set where to "install" to, if you don't want to run out of the build tree.

Sample batch file for build

This assumes that you have a full clone of vcpkg in w:\vcpkg and want to build on the command line, using the Visual Studio 2019 build tools.

@setlocal
 
@rem Set up environment for build
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"
 
@rem Change current directory
w:
cd "w:\src\monado"
 
cmake -S . ^
  -B build
  -G Ninja ^
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE="Release" ^
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="w:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake"
 
ninja -C build

If you want to build the outOfProcess version of Monado, please add extra build parameter -DXRT_FEATURE_SERVICE=ON.

Using

Run Monado service

If you build the outOfProcess version of Monado, you need to start the monado-service.exe first with the following command in cmd.exe command prompt before running OpenXR clients:

monado-service.exe

or the following in PowerShell:

.\monado-service.exe

If you build the inProcess version of Monado, you don't need the above steps, and you can jump to the next section to run OpenXR clients directly.

Run hello_xr

Proper install of a runtime in Windows involves registry modifications. However, the easiest way to test is just to set the XR_RUNTIME_JSON environment variable (in a command prompt/powershell where you will launch the app) to the generated JSON manifest file. Assuming you have a terminal open to the directory where hello_xr.exe is, you can run the following in cmd.exe command prompt, changing path as required:

@rem May have the build type as an additional directory if using a multi-config generator
set XR_RUNTIME_JSON=w:\src\monado\build\openxr_monado-dev.json
hello_xr.exe -G Vulkan

or the following in PowerShell:

$env:XR_RUNTIME_JSON="w:\src\monado\build\openxr_monado-dev.json"

.\hello_xr.exe -G Vulkan

Limitations

Note that there are current limitations in the Windows build. The main one currently is no actual headset drivers yet, partially because some USB stuff needs porting, and partially because direct mode on Windows is more complicated.

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