Beginnersdl2
Beginner

Static build of SDL2 on Windows

How to compile SDL2 statically with visual studio, on windows. Making a static build of SDL can be helpful when making a game to avoid dependencies.

Prerequisites / Tools :
  • SDL2, Visual Studio
Nicolas Perdu
Written by Nicolas PerduSoftware engineer

In this tutorial we are making a static build of SDL using Visual Studio.

Why do we want to link SDL statically ?

Let’s count the number of dll :

One dll for SDL:

SDL2.dll

Six dll for SDL2_image:

SDL2_image.dll
libjpeg-9.dll
libpng16-16.dll
libtiff-5.dll
libwebp-4.dll
zlib1.dll

Three dll for SDL2_ttf:

SDL2_ttf.dll
libfreetype-6.dll
zlib1.dll

Seven dll for SDL2_mixer:

SDL2_mixer.dll
libFLAC-8.dll
libmodplug-1.dll
libogg-0.dll
libvorbis-0.dll
libvorbisfile-3.dll
smpeg2.dll

One dll for SDL2_gfx:

SDL2_gfx.dll

So if you use everything there are 17 dll files to include (one zlib1.dll is enough).

But wait there is more:
With visual studio your program is probably compiled with \MD which means the run-time library is a dll. So the user will need to have the package Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio installed to run the app.

The first thing to do is to link the static version of the run-time library with your app, for that change \MD to \MT (for Release) in the Project Properties -> C/C++ -> Code Generation -> Runtime Library

All the SDL libraries are compiled with the flag \MD so we will recompile every library and change \MD to \MT.

Static build of SDL2 on Windows

Compile SDL2 statically

You should obtain: SDL2.lib and SDL2main.lib (SDL2-VS2015.7z).

SDL2 dependencies

Here is the list of dependencies to add in the Linker -> Input of the project you want to compile:

winmm.lib
imm32.lib
version.lib

These libraries are already included in visual studio so it should not be necessary to include them with other lib files.

SDL2_image static on Windows

Compile SD2_image

You should obtain: SDL2_image.lib (SDL2_image.lib for VS2015)

SDL2_image dependencies

You will need to compile the libraries in the folder SDL2_image-2.0.1/external/, don’t forget to pick the static version or add \MT if you have a visual studio project.
You can find other resources on how to compile these libraries.
The list of the dependencies are : libpng16.lib, libwebp.lib, libjpeg.lib and zlib.lib (SDL2_image_dep-VS2015.7z).

You need to include these in the linker, if you use tiff image you also need to add libtiff-5.dll (SDL2_image-2.0.1/VisualC/external/lib)

SDL2_ttf static on Windows

Compile SD2_ttf

You should obtain: SDL2_tff.lib (SDL2_ttf.lib for VS2015)

SDL2_ttf dependencies

There is only the library freetype to compile statically linked: SDL2_ttf-2.0.14/external/freetype-2.4.12.
You should obtain: libfreetype-6.lib (libfreetype-6.lib for VS2015)

SDL2_mixer static on Windows

Compile SD2_mixer

SDL2_mixer dependencies

SDL2_gfx static

Compile SD2_gfx

You should obtain: SDL2_gfx.lib (SDL2_gfx.lib for VS2015)

SDL2_gfx dependencies

There is no dependencies!

Project Test

When you create a project with all the libraries you should include for the linker:

winmm.lib
imm32.lib
version.lib
SDL2main.lib
freetype2412.lib
SDL2_ttf.lib
zlib.lib
libpng16.lib
libwebp.lib
libjpeg.lib
SDL2_image.lib
timidity.lib
libFLAC_static.lib
smpeg.lib
libmodplug.lib
libogg_static.lib
libvorbis_static.lib
win_utf8_io_static.lib
SDL2.lib
libvorbisfile_static.lib
SDL2_gfx.lib
SDL2_mixer.lib

and have two dll:

smpeg.dll
SDL.dll

Download project : Static build of SDL2 on Windows

You can download the test project (with all includes an libs) for VS2015: TestSDL.7z