Build Azahar from Source on Windows (MSYS2 or MSVC)

Building Azahar on Windows requires a C++20-capable compiler, CMake 3.25 or later, and a set of libraries that you can install through MSYS2 or Visual Studio. MSYS2 provides a more Linux-like workflow and is the recommended path for most contributors.

MSYS2 is the recommended toolchain for building Azahar on Windows. It gives you access to a full pacman package ecosystem, avoids many MSVC-specific compatibility quirks, and matches the environment used in CI. Use MSVC only if you have a specific reason to do so.

Install a compiler toolchain

Choose one of the two supported toolchains.

MSYS2 (recommended)
MSVC

Download and run the MSYS2 installer from msys2.org. Once installed, open the MSYS2 MinGW UCRT64 shell (not the plain MSYS2 shell) for all subsequent steps.Update the package database before installing anything:

pacman -Syu

Restart the shell when prompted, then run the update again to finish:

pacman -Su

Install dependencies via MSYS2 pacman

In the MSYS2 MinGW UCRT64 shell, install the required build tools and libraries:

pacman -S \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cmake \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-ninja \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-qt6-base \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-qt6-multimedia \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL2 \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-boost \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-openssl \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-zstd \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-libusb \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-speexdsp \
  git

Several additional dependencies—including dynarmic, fmt, cryptopp, soundtouch, cubeb, openal-soft, glslang, and vulkan-headers—are bundled as Git submodules and built automatically as part of the CMake configuration.

Clone the repository with submodules

Clone the Azahar repository and initialize all submodules in a single command:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/azahar-emu/azahar.git
cd azahar

If you already cloned without --recurse-submodules, fetch the submodules manually:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Configure with CMake

Create a build directory and run CMake from inside it. The default configuration builds the Qt frontend and enables SDL2, OpenAL, cubeb, libusb, and the Vulkan renderer.

cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

You can pass additional flags to customize the build. Some commonly used options are listed below:

Option	Default	Description
`ENABLE_QT`	`ON`	Build the Qt6 desktop frontend
`ENABLE_SDL2`	`ON`	Enable SDL2 input/audio backend
`ENABLE_VULKAN`	`ON`	Enable the Vulkan renderer
`ENABLE_OPENGL`	`ON`	Enable the OpenGL renderer
`ENABLE_OPENAL`	`ON`	Enable the OpenAL audio backend
`ENABLE_CUBEB`	`ON`	Enable the cubeb audio backend
`ENABLE_LIBUSB`	`ON`	Enable libusb for GameCube Adapter support
`USE_DISCORD_PRESENCE`	`OFF`	Enable Discord Rich Presence
`ENABLE_QT_TRANSLATION`	`OFF`	Bundle Qt UI translations

For example, to enable Discord Rich Presence:

cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DUSE_DISCORD_PRESENCE=ON

Build

Compile the project using Ninja (or cmake --build if you are using MSVC):

MSYS2 / Ninja
MSVC

cmake --build build --config Release

cmake --build build --config Release

You can also open the generated .sln file in Visual Studio and build from there. The startup project is set to citra_meta.

Run the built executable

After a successful build, the Azahar executable is placed in:

build\bin\Release\azahar.exe

You can run it directly from that path. To create a distributable bundle that includes all required Qt libraries and plugins, run:

cmake --build build --target bundle

The bundled output appears in build\bundle\.

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Build Azahar from Source on Windows (MSYS2 or MSVC)

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Building

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