How to build on windows?

[scarletquasar]

[kevin01881]

It works perfectly through WSL on Windows 10. Install Ubuntu ('wsl --install' command in Powershell). Then install the make and build-essential packages in your Ubuntu instance, and you're all set.

From there, you can follow the steps written by @ggerganov in the readme, as if you were on Linux (well, you actually are using a Linux instance at that point, albeit a virtual one 🙂)

[ggerganov]

Another option is to get the latest executable from the Actions page:

https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/actions

[vitacon]

Well, I managed to compile "main.exe" in Visual Studio 2022 running cmake:
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -S . -B ./build

It created a bunch of different project files and I could open .\build\ALL_BUILD.vcxproj and compile it from VS IDE.

However, I would still like to get the "proper" latest automated build, but all I can see on Actions page are logs from the compilation process:

Run actions/upload-artifact@v1
Uploading artifact 'whisper-bin-x64' from 'D:\a\whisper.cpp\whisper.cpp\build\bin\RelWithDebInfo' for run #300
Uploading 12 files
File upload complete.
Uploaded '61310873' bytes from 'D:\a\whisper.cpp\whisper.cpp\build\bin\RelWithDebInfo' to server
Associated artifact whisper-bin-x64 (1821441) with run #300

I suppose I am not looking in the right place? It would be also easier if the exact link was mentioned on the main page (readme.md) but I can't find it there either... =(

[jake1271]

Do you know where on the Actions page the Windows executable can be downloaded? I went to the last page, currently 38, and don't see any execs to download. Sorry for being so dense.

[rovashan]

@jake1271 Click on one of the successful runs then you will see the artifacts at the bottom.

[jake1271]

Ok thanks, so any successful run is ok? I took this one from tag master: https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/actions/runs/4567265807

[rovashan]

Yes, that should be fine. Typically the newer the better.

[RYucel]

At the end of actions page, you will find executables for Windows. To download, you need to login your GitHub account.

…

On Thu, 8 Dec 2022, 15:05 vitacon, ***@***.***> wrote: Well, I managed to compile "main.exe" in Visual Studio 2022 running cmake: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -S . -B ./build It created a bunch of different project files and I could open .\build\ALL_BUILD.vcxproj and compile it from VS IDE. However, I would still like to get the "proper" latest automated build, but all I can see on Actions page are logs from the compilation process: Run ***@***.*** Uploading artifact 'whisper-bin-x64' from 'D:\a\whisper.cpp\whisper.cpp\build\bin\RelWithDebInfo' for run #300 Uploading 12 files File upload complete. Uploaded '61310873' bytes from 'D:\a\whisper.cpp\whisper.cpp\build\bin\RelWithDebInfo' to server Associated artifact whisper-bin-x64 (1821441) with run #300 I suppose I am not looking in the right place? It would be also easier if the exact link was mentioned on the main page (readme.md) but I can't find it there either... =( — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#85 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AF5JAEDUQ2PAAHYX33YO5P3WMHMIJANCNFSM6AAAAAARNG57YI> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[rovashan]

Can you provide the command to run the Windows executable please?

[vitacon]

Run the process to convert .wav to .srt?
The simplest way is this:
main -f input.wav

But the audio must be of 16 kHz and you must place the right model file to "models" subfolder first.

[rovashan]

I would like it to transcribe using the mic input rather than from a file.

I tried running the below command but it's printing nonsense.
stream -m "C:\repo\whisper.cpp\models\ggml-base.en.bin" -t 8 --step 500 --length 5000

There is also this warning message that comes up so maybe it needs a faster machine.
SDL_main: WARNING: cannot process audio fast enough, dropping audio ...

[vitacon]

Sorry, I have no experience with it. But if your machine is not fast enough you could try "tiny" model. Smaller models are faster.

[rovashan]

It's better with the tiny model but still not great so I will try a different machine.

[Const-me]

Technically, File / Open / CMake works OK.

Practically, the .exe made that way doesn’t use AVX2 or even AVX, and takes 7.5 minutes to process samples/jfk.wav using medium.en model.

[Const-me]

@Const-me Do you mean that the build with CMake does not enable the AVX flags?

Indeed. Not even AVX1 was enabled in the cmake builds.

The following should enable AVX on Windows:

whisper.cpp/CMakeLists.txt

Lines 148 to 152 in 832b4f3

	message(STATUS "x86 detected")
	if (MSVC)
	set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} /arch:AVX2")
	set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE} /arch:AVX2")
	else()

That didn’t work for some reason. At least not in Visual Studio 2022.
Note that for optimal performance, the DLL project also needs /GL compiler switch, and /LTCG linker switch.

See the complete projects in my fork: https://github.com/Const-me/whisper.cpp/tree/master/Windows

BTW, consider merging that fork, these two commits improved performance by about 20% on my computer.

[xuanyinmu]

Here's an example on my Dell laptop with a i7-8550U CPU:

Hello, i'm the beginner.
I want to create a new project in VS to run whispercpp like you. I haven’t changed anything,just copy the main.cpp code to ASRTCPP.cpp, but I always report an error that the vector subscript is out of bounds. I don’t know what’s going on. If you can help solve it, thank you very much.

[vitacon]

Hmm, I somehow missed that we are building the Windows packages with BLAS enabled. My experience on the couple of Linux machines that I have is that without BLAS it is faster. So I would recommend disabling it and see if the performance improves (i.e. the build that you made from your IDE).

I am not sure if you tried to do something about it but your Windows GitHub build still reports that BLAS is enabled so the build is rather slow... 😿

[ggerganov]

There is now also a non-Blas Windows build.
But don't expect major performance improvements - probably few tens of per cent.

[vitacon]

Thanks! It will save me some time needed for manual compilation.

The difference is really noticeable - at least on my CPU (Ryzen 5 3600).
These are numbers with a random vocal sample and Medium model:

"my build"     218 596 ms
BLAS disabled  218 038 ms
BLAS enabled   510 956 ms

With Tiny model the ratio was even bigger (about 1:4).

[DESNOSAURO-N3r0]

How can I compile it with cl.exe? what is the lib that I need to link it to?

[DESNOSAURO-N3r0]

Nvm, it was a silly question... I was supposed to copy whisper.lib inside the source code path...
and then use
#pragma comment(lib, "whisper")

[Patch4747]

Can I use the whisper.dll asset in a C# project? I'm not sure how to know what the exported methods are.

[AmSmart]

Sure, why not! You can also checkout the Whisper.net project

[Kreijstal]

You can read the PKGBUILDs from the msys2 project