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Kai Blaschke 6639a8252a
Update CMake build instructions 
Signed-off-by: Kai Blaschke <kai.blaschke@kb-dev.net>
2025-10-27 11:22:57 +01:00

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Building projectM from source

Since version 4.0, projectM uses CMake to configure and build the library on all platforms.

This file only contains quick-start build instructions. For a more detailed guide and a list of all build options, please read the BUILDING-cmake.md file.

Quick Start (Debian / Ubuntu)

For other operating systems (Windows/macOS), see the OS-specific sections below.

Install the build tools and dependencies

Mandatory packages:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake libgl1-mesa-dev mesa-common-dev

Important: Depending on your distribution, the CMake package might be too old to build projectM, e.g. Debian 11 ( bookworm) only provides CMake 3.18 while CMake 3.21 is required. In this case, get the latest CMake release from Kitware's download page.

Optional packages:

sudo apt install ninja-build # To build projectM with Ninja instead of make
sudo apt install libsdl2-dev # To build the development test UI

Download the projectM sources

For production use, it is highly recommended to use the latest stable version of projectM. Download the latest release from the Releases page on GitHub and unpack it.

Using a development version

If you prefer a bleeding-edge version or want to modify the code, clone the Git repository and initialize any submodules:

sudo apt install git # Probably already installed
git clone https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectm.git /path/to/local/repo
cd /path/to/local/repo
git fetch --all --tags
git submodule init
git submodule update

Build and install projectM

Older projectM releases use autoconf/automake for building. If your repository has a CMakeLists.txt file on the top level, skip to the CMake part right below.

Replace /usr/local with your preferred installation prefix.

Configure the project using CMake

sudo apt install cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..

To generate Ninja scripts instead of Makefiles, add -GNinja to the above command.

Build and install

These commands will build projectM and install it to /usr/local or the configured installation prefix set in the step before:

cmake --build . -- -j && sudo cmake --build . --target install

Note: You won't need to use sudo if the install prefix is writeable by your non-privileged user.

Test projectM

If you have a desktop environment installed, you can now run [prefix]/bin/projectMSDL.

Dependencies

Depending on the OS/distribution and packaging system, libraries might be split into separate packages with binaries and development files. To build projectM, both binaries and development files need to be installed.

General build dependencies for all platforms:

  • A working build toolchain (compiler, linker).
  • CMake 3.21 or highter.
  • OpenGL: 3D graphics library. Used to render the visualizations.
  • GLES3: OpenGL libraries for embedded systems, version 3. Required to build projectM on mobile devices, Raspberry Pi and Emscripten.
  • glm: OpenGL Mathematics library. It is optional, projectM will use a bundled version if not installed.
  • SDL2: Simple Directmedia Layer. Version 2.0.5 or higher is required to build the development test application in the build directory.
  • vcpkg: C++ Dependency Manager. Optional, but recommended to install library dependencies and/or using CMake to configure the build. Mainly used on Windows, but also works for Linux and macOS.

Only relevant for Windows:

  • GLEW: The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library. Only required if using CMake to configure the build, the pre-created solutions use a bundled copy of GLEW.

Building on Linux and macOS

Installing dependencies

  • Linux distributions will have packages available for most (if not all) required libraries. The package names and commands to install them vary widely between distributions (and even versions of the same distribution). Please refer to the documentation of your build OS on how to find and install the required libraries.
  • On *BSD, install the appropriate Ports with pkg install.
  • On macOS, a working Xcode installation is required. CMake (and libSDL2 for the test UI) can be installed using Homebrew.

Building

The steps documented below are a bare minimum quickstart guide on how to build and install the project. If you want to configure the build to your needs, require more in-depth information about the build process and available tweaks, or on how to use libprojectM in your own CMake-based projects, see BUILDING-cmake.md.

Using CMake is the only supported way of building projectM since version 4.0. CMake is a platform-independent tool that is able to generate files for multiple build systems and toolsets while using only a single set of build instructions.

Building the project with CMake requires two steps:

  • Configure the build and generate project files.
  • Build and install the project using the selected build tools.

Note: The build directory should always be different from the source directory. Generating the build files directly inside the source tree is possible, but strongly discouraged. Using a subdirectory, e.g. cmake-build inside the source directory is fine though.

This documentation only covers project-specific information. CMake is way too versatile and feature-rich to cover any possible platform- and toolset-specific configuration details here. If you are not experienced in using CMake, please first read the official CMake documentation (at least the User Interaction Guide) for basic usage instructions.

Configure the build

Configuring a non-debug build with default options and install prefix (/usr/local) can be done with these commands, building in a subdirectory inside the source directory:

cd /path/to/source
mkdir cmake-build
cd cmake-build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

CMake will check all required dependencies and display any errors. If configuration was successful, a summary of the build configuration is printed and CMake should display a Generating done line. The project is now ready to build.

Compile and install the project

Depending on your generator choice, you can use your selected toolset as usual to build and install projectM:

  • With Unix Makefiles, run make && sudo make install.
  • With Ninja, run ninja && sudo ninja install.
  • With Xcode, select the appropriate target and configuration in Xcode and build it, or INSTALL to install the project.

You can also use CMake's build mode to run the selected toolset and build any specified target. CMake knows which command to call and which parameters to pass, so the syntax works on all platforms with all generators. If you've already set the top-level build directory as working directory, simply pass . as /path/to/build/dir:

cmake --build /path/to/build/dir --config Release
sudo cmake --build /path/to/build/dir --config Release --target install

If you don't need root permissions to install to the given path, running the second command without sudo is sufficient.

To control how many files are compiled in parallel, pass the --parallel N argument to the build command, with N being the number of concurrent compile commands. If not given explicitly, the build processor (make, ninja, MSBuild, xcodebuild etc.) will decide the limit, which may range from one file at a time to all files at once.

If you want to provide arguments directly to the toolset command, add -- at the end of the CMake command line followed by any additional arguments. CMake will pass these unchanged and unchecked to the subcommand:

cmake --build /path/to/build/dir --config Release -- <additional build tool args>

Building on Windows

To build the projectM library and the SDL-based standalone application, CMake must be used to create the project files first. Using vcpkg to pull in the build dependencies is highly recommended, as CMake can't use NuGet (NuGet pulls in dependencies using the project files, while CMake requires the libraries before creating the project files).

Installing the dependencies with vcpkg

As stated above, using vcpkg is the easiest way to get the required dependencies. First, install vcpkg from GitHub by following the official guide.

We've included a vcpkg manifest file in the repository root, designed to automatically install dependencies when you create your solution.

Creating the Visual Studio solution

CMake provides separate generators for different Visual Studio versions. Newer CMake versions will support recent Visual Studio releases, but may remove generators for older ones. To get a list of available generators from the command line, use the -G switch without an argument. The CMake GUI will present you a dropdown list you can easily select from.

To set the build architecture in Visual Studio builds, use the -A switch and specify either Win32 or X64 as the argument. If you want to build for both architectures, create separate build directories and configure them accordingly.

To make CMake aware of the installed vcpkg packages, simply use the provided toolchain file when configuring the projectM build by pointing CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE to it.

Here is a full command line example to create a Visual Studio 2022 solution for X64:

cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A "X64" -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="<path to vcpkg>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -S "<path to source dir>" -B "<path to build dir>"

If you use the CMake GUI, check the "Specify toolchain file for cross-compiling" option in the first page of the configuration assistant, then select the above vcpkg.cmake file on the second page.

Another option is to open the project folder in a recent Visual Studio version as a CMake project and configure CMake using Visual Studio's JSON-based settings file.

Building the solution

To build the project, open the generated solution in Visual Studio and build it like any other solution. Each time the CMake files are changed, Visual Studio will automatically regenerate the CMake build files and reload the solution before continuing the build. Be aware that in old Visual Studio versions (2015 and earlier) the reload-and-continue might not work properly.

You can also build the solution with msbuild via the command line, or use CMake's build wrapper to do that for you:

cmake --build "<path to build dir>" --config Release

Using Ninja to build

The Ninja build system is shipped with Visual Studio since version 2019 and used by default if loading a CMake project directly from within the IDE. Ninja can also be installed separately.

To configure the build directory for Ninja, pass Ninja or Ninja Multi-Config as the argument for the -G switch. The difference between both generators is that the former uses CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to specify the configuration ( e.g. Debug or Release) while the latter supports all configurations in a single build directory, specified during build time.

The architecture is determined from the toolset, so make sure to run the commands in the correct Visual Studio command prompt, e.g. "Native Tools for X64".

Configure and build for a single-configuration Release build with vcpkg:

cmake -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="<path to vcpkg>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -S "<path to source dir>" -B "<path to build dir>"
cmake --build "<path to build dir>"

Same, but using the multi-configuration generator:

cmake -G "Ninja Multi-Config" -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="<path to vcpkg>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -S "<path to source dir>" -B "<path to build dir>"
cmake --build "<path to build dir>" --config Release

Notes on other platforms and features

Supported platforms

libprojectM is designed to be compatible with as many platforms and architectures as possible. Thus, the code base doesn't use any non-portable code like OS-specific APIs or assembly instructions.

The code compiles for the following target architectures:

  • i686 (x32 / x86)
  • x86_64 (x64)
  • armv7 (arm)
  • aarch64 (arm64 / armv8)
  • WASM

Other architectures such as PPC, RISC and MIPS should be supported as well. Big-endian support is untested and thus might be buggy.

libprojectM builds at least on the following platforms:

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • macOS (iOS/tvOS as well, but be aware that Apple's TOS may prevent its use in Store apps!)
  • BSD derivates
  • Android
  • WebGL/WASM (using emscripten)

As long as a platform provides OpenGL Core 3.3 or OpenGL ES 3.2 libraries and supports at least C++ 14, libprojectM should build fine.

Raspberry Pi (and other embedded systems)

Make sure to enable GLES support by passing -DENABLE_GLES=TRUE to CMake's configuration command and install the appropriate OS libraries. Otherwise, follow the Linux build instructions above.

For applications using projectM, it's highly recommended to keep certain performance-related settings low, such as:

  • The per-point mesh resolution should be kept low, e.g. 48x32
  • The rendering resolution should not exceed 720p on the Pi, though most presets will also run at ~60 FPS in 1080p

Build using NDK for Android

To build projectM using the Android SDK, please refer to the official NDK docs:

https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/cmake

It is highly recommended using the latest NDK and CMake >= 3.21 for building.

Using libprojectM with pkgconfig

Some UNIX build systems cannot use CMake config packages, like GNU autotools. To use libprojectM with such build systems, projectM's build system also creates basic .pc files during the installation process.

Note that the resulting pkgconfig files will not necessarily work in all circumstances, because they are much less flexible than CMake (or Meson). When using pkgconfig, some required libraries will probably not be linked automatically (e.g. OpenGL libraries) and have to be added manually depending on the application needs.

Frontends and audio capturing

Previous projectM versions (before 4.0) came with several UIs and audio capture implementations. To reduce the size of the code base and separate the release cycles and development of the core library and the frontends, these have been removed from libprojectM and either being rewritten or moved into their own, separate Git repository.

libprojectM on its own does not have any means of capturing audio, it simply takes PCM data via the API. Applications using projectM can supply this data from their own audio sources, e.g. music playing in an audio player or capturing audio data from OS or other external sources.