build: link zlib statically to remove z.dll runtime dependency

Author: KytyPlus Dev

3rdparty/CMakeLists.txt

@@ -6,6 +6,12 @@ set(BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(ZLIB_BUILD_EXAMPLES OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(ZLIB_BUILD_TESTING OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(ZLIB_INSTALL OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
+# Build zlib statically only. The vendored zlib CMakeLists defaults
+# ZLIB_BUILD_SHARED to ON, which emits z.dll on Windows and makes the
+# emulator a hard runtime dependency on whatever z.dll the loader resolves
+# from PATH. A stale/ABI-mismatched z.dll then kills the process at startup.
+# Linking the static archive removes the DLL dependency entirely.
+set(ZLIB_BUILD_SHARED OFF CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 add_subdirectory(zlib EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)
 
 add_subdirectory(cpuinfo)

src/CMakeLists.txt

@@ -356,12 +356,13 @@ endif()
 
 set(kyty_emulator_link_libraries common Vulkan::Headers spirv-tools-opt spirv-tools SDL2-static imgui xxhash FFmpeg::ffmpeg fmt::fmt nlohmann_json::nlohmann_json LibAtrac9 kyty_git_version Zydis::Zydis xbyak::xbyak)
 
-# zlib is required by rpfArchiveReader on all platforms.
-find_package(ZLIB)
-if(ZLIB_FOUND)
-	list(APPEND kyty_emulator_link_libraries ZLIB::ZLIB)
-	list(APPEND kyty_emulator_compile_definitions KYTY_HAS_ZLIB=1)
-endif()
+# zlib is required by rpfArchiveReader on all platforms. The vendored static
+# archive (ZLIB::ZLIBSTATIC) is always built by 3rdparty/CMakeLists.txt, so
+# link it unconditionally. The shared target ZLIB::ZLIB is not built anymore
+# (no z.dll is emitted or loaded at runtime), and find_package(ZLIB) is not
+# used because it could resolve a system zlib instead of the vendored one.
+list(APPEND kyty_emulator_link_libraries ZLIB::ZLIBSTATIC)
+list(APPEND kyty_emulator_compile_definitions KYTY_HAS_ZLIB=1)
 
 # Linux system libraries required by the static FFmpeg archive.
 if(LINUX)

src/package/CMakeLists.txt

@@ -19,5 +19,5 @@ target_link_libraries(pkg_parser PRIVATE common)
 
 # zlib is required for PFSC (compressed PFS) decompression.
 # Vendored static build from 3rdparty/zlib (always available, no system dependency).
-target_link_libraries(pkg_parser PRIVATE ZLIB::ZLIB)
+target_link_libraries(pkg_parser PRIVATE ZLIB::ZLIBSTATIC)
 target_compile_definitions(pkg_parser PRIVATE KYTY_HAS_ZLIB=1)