Installing on Windows (MSVC)¶

This page builds with Microsoft's compiler (MSVC). For a MinGW-w64 build under MSYS2, see Building on Windows.

Setup script¶

Run the setup script from the repository root in PowerShell 7 as an administrator (scripts/setup/windows.ps1):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\setup\windows.ps1                 # toolchain and linters
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\setup\windows.ps1 -EnableCuda     # + NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\setup\windows.ps1 -EnableSycl     # + Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit

The script installs with winget, or with Chocolatey when winget is missing:

Package	Notes
Python 3.12	the Python linters are installed into it
Meson, Ninja, NASM	build tools
Git, Doxygen
LLVM	`clang-tidy` and `clang-format`
Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools	skipped when already present; add the Desktop development with C++ workload in the Visual Studio Installer afterwards
CUDA Toolkit	only with `-EnableCuda`
Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit	only with `-EnableSycl`

-InstallLinters:$false skips the Python linters.

Build¶

Open an x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022, so that cl.exe and the Windows SDK are on PATH.

Enable C11 atomics, which MSVC refuses without this flag:

set CFLAGS=/experimental:c11atomics
set CXXFLAGS=/experimental:c11atomics

From the repository root, configure and build:
```
meson setup build core --buildtype=release -Dc_std=none
ninja -C build
```
-Dc_std=none keeps Meson from adding /std:c17; the build adds /std:clatest itself, and without the option cl.exe prints warning D9025 ("overriding /std:c17 with /std:clatest") for every C file.

The binary is build\tools\vmaf.exe.

CUDA¶

Install the CUDA Toolkit (-EnableCuda, or the installer from the NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit page) and add -Denable_cuda=true to the meson setup line. Meson finds cl.exe for NVCC through vswhere or PATH; Native MSVC and CUDA explains the lookup.

SYCL / oneAPI¶

Install the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit, initialise it in the shell, and add -Denable_sycl=true:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\oneAPI\setvars.bat"

The Windows SYCL build also needs the Level Zero loader, which oneAPI does not ship for Windows, and the icx-cl compiler. SYCL on Windows gives the full recipe.

Intel QSV (optional, for vmaf-tune)¶

On Windows the oneVPL runtime comes with Intel's graphics driver: install the current driver from the Intel Driver & Support Assistant or the Arc & Iris Xe Graphics driver package. To build FFmpeg with QSV yourself, install the oneVPL development headers. Intel QSV has the hardware matrix and the FFmpeg requirements.

Notes¶

A change that builds on Linux but fails on Windows usually hits an MSVC difference: variable-length arrays are rejected, the 64-bit integer typedefs differ, and narrowing conversions are stricter.
scripts/dev/preflight.sh --stage msvcism checks the most common of these without a Windows host (preflight).
Windows on ARM64 has its own recipe in Native MSVC on Windows ARM64.