• 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.

As a veteran GM Studio 1.4 user, should I get the Studio 2?

Zealwind

Member
So, that's my question. I I've used the 1.4 to make some games now in the past but it's actually been some years I haven't touched game development. I'm thinking of starting to tackle a new project. How comfortable would I be with the 2? Is 1.4 very outdated now, in regards to publishing on Steam and what not?

Thank you in advance for advice and have a very great day!
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
If your old car's engine is smoking but you can still drive it, should you get a new car? ;)

1.4 has been sunset for years now. A lot of the exports are no longer viable because app stores are refusing apps created with them because they haven't been updated to comply with the newest guidelines.


As for how comfortable you would be with GMS 2: Download it and try it out! :) The free trial has just been extended indefinitely. You have all the time in the world to explore it.
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
GM Studio 1.4 still works fine enough, but a lot of it is as Tsuka rightly pointed out a smoking engine. For instance you won't be able to publish an android app *at all* because the SDK GMS1.4 uses is old enough Google has removed all apps using it from their app store. Publishing on Steam could pose similar issues as GMS is not built to use modern steam API's, and you may need to bodge together your own solution to get it going, whereas GMS2 just does it out of the box (albeit with steamworks 2018), minimal tinkering required.

So, if you're just a hobbyist enjoying your occational game making and don't care you are using obsolete software with no support incoming GMS1.4 still works fine as a game engine. However GMS2 may be the better choice simply for the increased power and support.

Also GMS2 has native support for structs and the ability to define and declare functions anywhere, which is an automatic win in my book
 
As a veteran GM Studio 1.4 user, should I get the Studio 2
The only reason to use 1.4 now is if you already know how to use it, so it completely depends on how comfortable you were with 1.4.

Game maker Studio 2 has a hugely different workflow from 1.4, the only thing it's kept the same is the underlying language, GML.

Reasons to move to GMS2
- GM1.4 is no longer supported (you can't even buy it anymore).
- You will need to patch GM1.4 (see step 4 here) when you finally want to make a distributable copy of your product
- If you want to export to any platform other than windows, you will need GMS2
- GMS2 has way more features
- GMS2 is in development, so if you find a bug you can request it to be fixed.

Reasons to stay with GM1.4
- You've already bought it
- You know how to use it (?) (even if a little rusty)
- It currently works fine for windows, (big target audience)!
- If at any point ever have a problem you can use the GM2 project converter and work from there.

I am personally passionate about 1.4, but that's only because I've invested so much time into it.
If I hadn't touched it for a while and completely forgot how to use it, of the two choices I'd definitely use GMS2.

The free trial has just been extended indefinitely. You have all the time in the world to explore it.
Oh nice! That's good to know. I guess OP has nothing to lose by trying it.

Publishing on Steam could pose similar issues as GMS is not built to use modern steam API's, and you may need to bodge together your own solution to get it going, whereas GMS2 just does it out of the box (albeit with steamworks 2018), minimal tinkering required.
Steam definitely has backwards compatibility in mind and is unlikely to remove a large percentage of their library by forcing the latest version of their sdk. That would probably lose them quite a lot of money.
 
Last edited:
If you're not planning on publishing to google play store then stick with 1.4. Studio 2 is slow and convoluted. I have both versions only because I publish Android apps, but all my work is done in 1.4. I use extensions to transfer my projects to studio 2 then just use it for compiling.
 

basementApe

Member
Slow? I dunno, I'm running GMS2 on a Celeron 3965y laptop over here sometimes. Runs fine, no problems.

I never used GMS 1.4 so I have no idea how they compare. I transitioned to GMS2 from another gamedev engine tho. It only took me a couple of evenings to get comfortable. So I imagine going from 1.4 would be even easier.
 

Cpaz

Member
Studio 2 is slow and convoluted.
Gonna have to contest that one. GMS1.4 chugs with large-scale projects. Especially with the room editor. GMS2 has mostly resolved those issues (Especially saving and loading projects good lord).
The only thing that might chug is the workspaces. But I only ever use the full-screen code editor, so I rarely ever have to deal with that.
If anything, jump to GMS2 for the room editor alone, not only is it far more robust, but there's no comparison, performance-wise.
 

TheWaffle

Member
I use 1.4 ish ..... I like 1.41757 for the html5 export and switch to 1.4999 for the html5 debugger. GM2+ I would have trouble exporting to html5 without getting a license $$
Currently, I am working on a windows project .... GMS2+ would be fine for that .... also, the new html5 features under GM2 are interesting ....

Eventually, I do plan to migrate just for the better room tile features and custom typing/structs .... Much better for coding neural networks....

I do not publish to steam or google .... so, those issues are not a problem for me. For me, this is a hobby and the best hobbies take time but not money :)
If/when my hobby makes money, everything will be re-evaluated.

Just another opinion. GM2 would be great if just starting out.... maybe godot would be even better. But, what I have just works fine for me.
 
Top