• Hello [name]! Thanks for joining the GMC. Before making any posts in the Tech Support forum, can we suggest you read the forum rules? These are simple guidelines that we ask you to follow so that you can get the best help possible for your issue.

What to expect before purchasing gms 2?

B

BDigital

Guest
Hello everyone. Completely new here and was just a little curious about the engine you guys use. I'm thinking about buying a license but have a few concerns. The 100 dollar license(something I can afford) says I can export to Windows, Mac, Linux. I also plan on using spine(http://esotericsoftware.com/) for my animations. I just need to know if my spine 2d animations will work on all 3 platforms.
 
Have you tried the 30 days trial version first? Strongly advise you test the software before buying it. During this pandemic it's plenty of time for you to setup a 2d spine animation and import it to the software to determine if it's good for you and see if GM is something you'd be happy using overall.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
While I can only agree with the above, unless otherwise stated in the manual or clearly only intended for a specific platform, all functionality is available on all platforms.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
All answers sound reasonable. But I do want to throw in linux support within spine animations.
 
T

ThatAussieKiwi

Guest
Hey,

I am only new to gamemaker but from my experience asking as your image is a PNG you can import it into your game as a sprite. So from what I know you should be able to but again I have to agree with the previous response. Just download the trial version and see if this engine is right for you even if you only have a quick look before buying it at least you have seen what you are purchased first hand and if it can do everything you want it to do.
 
T

ThatAussieKiwi

Guest
All answers sound reasonable. But I do want to throw in linux support within spine animations.
As long as an image is formatted as PNG you shouldn't have any issues but like I was saying I am only new and someone else might say something different.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
Yeah speaking of which, I need to know how many sprites(as in frames) that the full version of gms 2 can handle?
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
There is no arbitrary limit as far as amount of sprites and frames. It will be more limited on your VRAM as far as how many you can have loaded at once, and there is a texture page system that can help if you need to how only certain sprites loaded at a time to combat lower VRAM amounts in bigger projects(as in only loading the sprites you need for a certain level for example instead of always having all of the sprites loaded).
 
B

BDigital

Guest
I see. So the sprites( as in frames) will only affect memory? As in RAM?
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
They will affect your Video RAM when your game is running. I'm not sure where the 3GB number came from on your part, the amount would depend on just how many sprites you have loaded at once.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
The 3gb part is how much the RAM currently has on a certain device. And as in video RAM, how you mean?
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I'm not sure where the number '3' came from though. There are typically two types of RAM in a PC, RAM for the processor, and video RAM that is either on the graphics card if you have a dedicated chip, or shared with the regular system memory if you are using an integrated graphics chip. It is the video memory(whether dedicated or shared with system RAM) that I'm referring to that gets filled up with your sprites when they get loaded and drawn in your game. Beyond that, I'm not sure where the number '3' is coming from that you keep saying.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
Sprites themselves will only affect the RAM usage of your game, and only when they are loaded. When they are drawn, they will affect RAM, VRAM, CPU and GPU usage.
You are limited to 2 GB of RAM usage per process on the Windows target due to the limit of 32 bit applications. The rest is up to you to handle and optimize, there are no hard limits.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
Alright. But what about on a mobile device? Like iPhone 7 plus or Samsung s8?
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
What about them? I'm unsure what your question is.

Generally, all I can say is that you should be questioning how much needs to be loaded rather than how much can be loaded.
 

Arvel

Member
What about them? I'm unsure what your question is.

Generally, all I can say is that you should be questioning how much needs to be loaded rather than how much can be loaded.
I think he's asking about mobile devices that tend to have lower memory, if that would affect the memory constraints by that much or not.

While I agree focusing on what you need is more efficient, I don't think knowing what the limits are hurts.
 

gkri

Member
By my humble opinion, spine2d is not well working with GMS2, comparing to other engines. There are certain (and absurd) limitations that you should clearly understand before buying either.

The good new are, that the next version of GMS 2.3v will include timeline, so I suppose many things will be doable without using spine at all...
 
B

BDigital

Guest
I think he's asking about mobile devices that tend to have lower memory, if that would affect the memory constraints by that much or not.

While I agree focusing on what you need is more efficient, I don't think knowing what the limits are hurts.
Pretty much what he said. They do tend to have lower RAM and I just needed to be sure if they make a huge impact on performance
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
Mobile devices will of course be more limited as far as to just how much you can do. Where on PC in a project you might be able to get away with not optimizing your texture pages, etc... on mobile you may have to, just depending on the size of your project, etc... I've seen plenty of big projects get done for mobile(both in GM and other engines), so though the issue requires more work to manage, it is far from impossible.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
I see. I heard about spritesheets and how they can save up memory. Is that true? I'm completely new to game development
 

gkri

Member
GMS2 takes your sprites and put it into spritesheets for you, or should I say texture atlases? You can have some control over this, by grouping sprites. When a spritesheet is full then it keeps filling the next one, and then the next one etc. At run time, when the game is executed, if sprites from different textures are needed, then the engine texture swaps them as necessary. The more texture swapping, more perfomance cost, especially for mobiles. Imagine that spine2d in gms2, can only have 1 texture per rig. So if you have on screen lets say, 10 different characters/rigs then aside the rest assets, will texture swapping among 10 textures!
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I'm not sure what you mean with spritesheets saving memory. You can import sprites using sprite sheets, or you can use a series of frames in separate files. The memory usage in the end is the same, as GMS adds them to texture pages.

The good part with the texture page system is that you can have groups of those that apply to different things. One group would have things that are going to be needed everywhere, like the player, any non level specific enemies, graphics for collectibles, coins, etc... then other groups can have graphics that pertain to only a certain level, including the tiles/platforms for that, as well as enemies that only appear in that level. Then, you can only load those graphics you need at any given time based on this. Your lava level won't need the graphics loaded for it until your player actually gets there...if when they beat the forest level and go into the lava level, you can unload the forest level graphics to save video RAM.
 
B

BDigital

Guest
These are all good answers. What else should I know before buying gms 2?
 

gkri

Member
I asked many questions like this before buying. I can understand your concerns. Some platform exports are not cheap. And I saw how friendly is the community here at forums and at their discord server.

I downloaded the trial version, followed a couple of beginner tutorials, and even if completely clueless, I got hooked by its' modern environment. I even did not let the trial period to expire. I bought my license sooner. Maybe you will be convinced and do the same, or completely dislike it and look for something else. And even if you are not quite sure if you like it and suits your needs after the trial period is over, then you could by a creator license (for win OR mac, NOT both), which will give you full access to GMS2 for a year. It costs about 40 bucks, not a big deal of money to risk. Then, when you know what to do, you could upgrade to developer license before your license expires and you will get with 30% discount.

The downside is, that targeting various platforms is going to be quite expensive, but worry not, 2-3 times per year, yoyogames offer discounts up to 20%-25%. With patience you could buy the licenses that you want at more affordable price. So far I have noticed that they sometimes (but not aways) offer discounts at Black Friday, December (Xmass), February (Lunar New Year Sale), April (Spring sales) and I thing I remember an August sale period. With a little research you can track the discounts history and plan accordingly... Watch often their blog, facebook and twitter...
 
Top