Introduction
This guide demonstrates how to build PCSX2 in Linux environments. Note that the steps provided below may vary depending on the distribution - such variances are not officially supported by the PCSX2 team.
Note that the procedure defined herein closely mirrors the scripts used by the PCSX2 CI process. These scripts provide more information behind the build process than what is stated here.
- https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/blob/master/.github/workflows/linux_build_qt.yml
- https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/tree/master/.github/workflows/scripts/linux
Dependencies
Note that dependencies tend to change over time, along with their required versions. In particular, PCSX2 no longer supports the gcc compiler, as it has transitioned to clang/llvm due to the many benefits the latter compiler offers, including superior efficiency and speed.
Ubuntu Package List
build-essential clang cmake curl extra-cmake-modules git libasound2-dev libaio-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libdbus-1-dev libdecor-0-dev libegl-dev libevdev-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype-dev libgtk-3-dev libgudev-1.0-dev libharfbuzz-dev libinput-dev libopengl-dev libpcap-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev libpulse-dev libssl-dev libswresample-dev libswscale-dev libudev-dev libwayland-dev libx11-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb1-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcb-cursor-dev libxcb-damage0-dev libxcb-glx0-dev libxcb-icccm4-dev libxcb-image0-dev libxcb-keysyms1-dev libxcb-present-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-render-util0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-sync-dev libxcb-util-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxcb-xinput-dev libxcb-xkb-dev libxext-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev libxrandr-dev lld llvm ninja-build pkg-config zlib1g-dev
Fedora Package List
The following package list is sufficient for building PCSX2 as of 2024/04/06 with Fedora 39. You must build the third-party dependencies using the script from the CI, as instructed below.
alsa-lib-devel brotli-devel clang cmake dbus-devel egl-wayland-devel extra-cmake-modules fontconfig-devel gcc-c++ gtk3-devel libaio-devel libcurl-devel libdecor-devel libevdev-devel libICE-devel libinput-devel libpcap-devel libSM-devel libX11-devel libXau-devel libxcb-devel libXcomposite-devel libXcursor-devel libXext-devel libXfixes-devel libXft-devel libXi-devel libxkbcommon-devel libxkbcommon-x11-devel libXpresent-devel libXrandr-devel libXrender-devel lld llvm make mesa-libEGL-devel mesa-libGL-devel ninja-build openssl-devel patch pcre2-devel perl-Digest-SHA pipewire-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel systemd-devel wayland-devel xcb-util-cursor-devel xcb-util-devel xcb-util-errors-devel xcb-util-image-devel xcb-util-keysyms-devel xcb-util-renderutil-devel xcb-util-wm-devel xcb-util-xrm-devel zlib-devel
Build procedure
Clone repository
$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2.git
$ cd pcsx2
Build Dependencies
PCSX2 depends on multiple third-party libraries, which should be built for your development environment. We provide a convenience script for building these dependencies, which is also used by our CI runners for release builds.
This will build the dependencies to your PCSX2 Git tree, in the deps directory. You can also specify an alternative location, but be sure to adjust CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH in the next step.
$ .github/workflows/scripts/linux/build-dependencies-qt.sh deps
Prepare build with CMake
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld=lld" -DCMAKE_MODULE_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld" -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS_INIT="-fuse-ld=lld" -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$PWD/deps" -GNinja
Note the following optional CMake flags that are commonly used:
-
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release|Devel|DebugRelease: Fastest build, but lacks debug/crash informationDevel: Adds detailed trace logging abilities, but lacks debug/crash informationDebug: Slowest build as there are no compiler optimizations, but offers debug/crash information
-
-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache- Uses ccache to speed up the build process
-
-DCMAKE_INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION=ON- Turns on link time optimization, which provides a noticeable performance improvement.
Execute build
$ ninja -C build
Running PCSX2
PCSX2 can be launched from the build directory:
$ build/bin/pcsx2-qt