Build MesenCE Libretro on Windows

Documentation index

Supported build

The primary supported configuration is:

Operating system: Windows x64
Toolchain:        MSYS2 MinGW64
Output:           mesen_ce_nes_libretro.dll

Automated PowerShell build

From the repository root:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass
.\BUILD_WINDOWS_X64.ps1

Optional parameters:

.\BUILD_WINDOWS_X64.ps1 `
    -MsysRoot "C:\msys64" `
    -Jobs 8 `
    -Clean

The script installs missing MSYS2 build packages through pacman, builds the Libretro target, stages the DLL and .info file in dist, checks the PE imports, verifies mandatory Libretro exports, and writes a SHA-256 checksum.

Direct MSYS2 build

Open an MSYS2 MinGW64 shell and run:

pacman -S --needed make git patch \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-binutils \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-winpthreads \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng

make --no-print-directory -C Libretro platform=win64 LTO=false -j8

Output

The Makefile writes the core under Libretro. The PowerShell wrapper copies the public artifacts to:

dist\mesen_ce_nes_libretro.dll
dist\mesen_ce_nes_libretro.info
dist\mesen_ce_nes_libretro.sha256.txt

FDS test requirements

FDS content requires a valid 8192-byte BIOS in the RetroArch system directory:

RetroArch\system\disksys.rom

No BIOS or ROM images are included in the project.

Clean rebuild

.\BUILD_WINDOWS_X64.ps1 -Clean

This removes generated object files and the local dist directory. It does not delete source files.