Quick tutorial writeup for Windows 7-8.1 users who want to use decaf. Disclaimer: YMMV. I use Windows 8.1 so more steps may be required for Windows 7 users.
By default, decaf-emu depends on the Windows 10 SDK and so it requires Windows 10, and most if not all binaries supplied by emulation sites, the official AppVeyor link, etc are compiled with Windows 10 as the target.
1. Install
Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition (free)
2. Install
GitHub Desktop.
3. Open GitHub desktop and sign into a GitHub account (create one if you don't have one).
4. Go to the
decaf-emu git in a web browser and click "Clone or download" and then "Open in desktop" and authorize permission when prompted (for Chrome you want to click "Launch application"). Select where you want it to download to. GitHub desktop should then begin downloading the source code and all dependency source code required to compile it.
5. Open the folder after it finishes and double click decaf.sln and Visual Studio should open.
NOTE: Visual Studio may complain about missing things like the Windows SDK, if it does, then do this:
Close Visual Studio. Open 'Programs and Settings' from the control panel or by searching for it in the Start Menu, right click Visual Studio and click 'Change', When the Visual Studio dialog opens, click Modify. Install whatever VS prompted you to install. Then reboot (if prompted to do so) and reopen decaf.sln
6. Under Solution Explorer, Right click "Solution 'decaf'..." and click 'Retarget Solution' and next to "Platform ..." select either 7 or 8.1 depending on which version of Windows you're using. Click OK.
7. Near the top of the main VS window, the second row under the title bar change the branch from "Release" to "ReleaseDebug"
8. Click 'Build' and then 'Build Solution' it may take quite some time depending on your CPU. Do not concern yourself with the various warnings that appear in the log. When it finishes you should see: "
Build: 17 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 3 skipped"
9. If all went well, you should see the path it compiled to in the log window:
18> decaf-sdl.vcxproj -> 18> decaf-sdl.vcxproj -> X:\Decaf\decaf-emu\\obj\ReleaseDebug\decaf-sdl.exe
10. Use it with
decaf-launcher or use it without -- your choice.
10b. If you decide to use it with decaf-launcher, then copy the files from the ReleaseDebug folder it compiled to into the \decaf\ folder you extracted decaf-launcher to, replace the files.
10c. Go to %Appdata% in File Explorer, and create a 'decaf' folder before attempting to save options in decaf-launcher.