Create vcpkg package for WinPixEventRuntime

[LucoseGlucose]

I am using vcpkg to manage packages for my project and would really like to use Pix events in order to profile. However, I do not want to manage two seperate package managers and I would not like to have to build WinPixEventRuntime.dll myself every time there is an update. Considering that both are microsoft products and many other people use vcpkg as well, there should be a port of WinPixEventRuntime to vcpkg.

[DominikGrabiec]

I've got a vcpkg port ready to go and can release it but in my testing I have a small issue, and therefore a few questions.

Is the WinPixEventRuntime.lib target actually meant to be built to be consumed by external projects or are external projects only meant to use the DLL forms, and the lib project is just for internal code management?

Because I'm getting some linker errors when trying to link with the static lib, notably PIXGetThreadInfo() and some other functions.

@austinkinross would you know about this?

[austinkinross]

Hi there, very sorry for the delay here - this fell off my radar.

You are correct, external projects are only meant to use DLL forms, and the lib project is for internal code management. Here's some relevant info from the README page:

If you do this, then we strongly recommend that you build and use WinPixEventRuntime.dll instead of statically linking the full WinPixEventRuntime.lib (and all of its functionality) into each of your binaries. This will avoid ETW problems that may occur if separate binaries within your process each emit PIX events.

https://github.com/microsoft/PixEvents?tab=readme-ov-file#recommendations-for-gameapplication-developers

A vcpkg version of WinPixEventRuntime would be great, we'd be happy to help if we can. Thanks!

[DominikGrabiec]

Is there any way to get a static library version included for when we statically link everything to the same executable?

[austinkinross]

Hi everyone, @walbourn has been creating a WinPixEventRuntime vcpkg over here 🥳: microsoft/vcpkg#42628

[austinkinross]

Is there any way to get a static library version included for when we statically link everything to the same executable?

We generally recommend against this, because it risks ETW problems if you link several binaries that all load in a single process and all emit WinPixEventRuntime events via ETW. https://github.com/microsoft/PixEvents?tab=readme-ov-file#recommendations-for-gameapplication-developers

Since we generally discourage this, we probably don't want to enable this in an obvious way via our packages. I'd recommend building from source instead.

[DominikGrabiec]

As I mentioned on the vcpkg pull request, I've got an implementation for WinPixEventRuntime at https://github.com/DominikGrabiec/vcpkg/tree/winpixeventruntime if people need to use it. It seems to compile/work locally for me.