GameMaker's Required SDKs

YoYo QA Dept
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This article details the required versions of the various tools and SDKs that the current release of GameMaker requires. 

We do not recommend using third-party tools ahead of what is listed below - GameMaker won't know how to support them properly and you may give yourself build errors or even IDE instability.

  • For general system specifications you will require, please see the popup on the GameMaker info page. (If you are a Mac user, you must also see the requirements for Xcode further down this page, as while old versions of macOS and Xcode may work perfectly well with GameMaker itself and so you can build games for your own Mac/iPhone/tvOS, you would be blocked by Apple from submitting your games to the App Store if you cannot use the Xcode version they require.)
  • For help with any file/folder permissions, network issues, or antivirus clients, please see this FAQ on the files/URLs GameMaker needs to be able to access.

Be aware also that for everything below we only offer support for physical machines running a single OS natively - we do not support any variant of virtual machines, including Parallels or Bootcamp on a Mac, "Hackintosh" PCs, or Windows emulators on a Linux distro, etc.

 

Which GameMaker Versions Does This FAQ Cover?

This FAQ assumes you're using IDE v2024.13.1.193 with Runtime v2024.13.1.242 (but all is the same for 2024.13.0 also)

If you're not on this version, we'd strongly recommend you update first and then follow this guide, as we cannot offer support for older releases.

Please also be aware this FAQ is only relevant for GameMaker versions AFTER 2022.6 - if you do need the setup instructions for a version of GameMaker 2022.6 or older, please see this Required SDKs For Old GameMaker Versions FAQ instead.

Similarly, if you need the setup instructions for the LTS release of GameMaker, please see this Required SDKs for GameMaker's 2022.0 LTS Version FAQ instead.

 

Contents

 

Setting Up The Windows IDE

  • Windows 7 is no longer supported as of 2024.11.0. (Older GameMaker versions still work fine.)
  • Visual Studio is required to be installed before you can build projects for Windows YYC or any of the consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics regarding which VS version to use.
  • If you are using Spine images in your game, then GameMaker requires your files to be exported with Spine runtime 4.0 specifically.
  • A separate physical Mac is still required for creating games for macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and tvOS - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • A separate physical Ubuntu machine is still required for creating games for Ubuntu - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • When targeting Mac/Ubuntu machines, we would highly recommend both machines are connected to your network using Ethernet rather than WiFi, as WiFi can result in issues if you are building large projects when using YYC.

 

 

Setting Up The Mac IDE

  • Please don't use macOS/iOS/tvOS/Xcode "developer" and "beta" builds - Apple's beta builds are often subject to large changes and an issue in one version may not be present in the next update. Be aware we will only look at Apple's "GM Candidates" and fix issues present in their release builds.
  • macOS Monterey and older are not supported in current releases. The macOS setup guide has further info if you want to continue doing local device testing on these old OSes and Xcode versions (you're already blocked by Apple from submitting to the AppStore), but please also bear in mind you might need to follow this Required SDKs For Old GameMaker Versions FAQ instead of this page if your macOS version is very old.
  • Whenever possible, we would recommend you leave case-sensitivity off when setting up your macOS machine (which is the default when installing macOS), as whilst we removed this requirement from GameMaker itself as of v2.3.0, we cannot control what the external build tools SDKs require, so you may find some platforms will still fail to build projects.
  • Xcode is required to be installed separately before you can build any "Apple platform"  packages, and this has its own minimum OS version Apple will allow you to install it on - see the macOS and iOS/iPadOS/tvOS sections below for specifics
  • An Apple Developer account is required before you can use Xcode, and you will need Xcode to build and codesign the application as per Apple's platform requirements - and this developer account will need to be the paid version if you want to give your app to anyone else (only dev testing on your own machine is free these days). If you are a school/business, you only need one Apple account - you don't need one per student/staff member!
  • If you are using Spine images in your game, then GameMaker requires your files to be exported with Spine runtime 4.0 specifically.
  • A separate physical Windows PC is still required for creating games for Windows and any consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • A separate physical Ubuntu machine is still required for creating games for Ubuntu - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • When targeting Ubuntu machines, we would highly recommend both machines are connected to your network using Ethernet rather than WiFi, as WiFi can result in issues if you are building large projects when using YYC.

 

 

Setting Up The Ubuntu IDE (Beta Only!)

The Ubuntu Beta IDE is not suitable for a production environment at this time.

  • 2024.13+ is to be used with Ubuntu 24 LTS versions only. Ubuntu 22 LTS support stopped with 2024.1300 Beta 5, as it does not contain the audio library that's required - note that this also affects a number of other older distros that were never officially supported, but did work up until now.
  • 2024.800->1100 are intended to be used with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS versions. You can use 2024.800 on Ubuntu 22, but you will need to manually install the FFMpeg framework yourself on your Ubuntu machine first.
  • 2024.600 and older are to be used with Ubuntu 22 LTS versions only.
  • No distro other than the Ubuntu versions listed above is offered any official support - GameMaker may work if you can install the .deb and the other required packages, but we may not accept bug reports about other distros or customised kernels, etc., as we are only interested in Ubuntu feedback.
  • A separate physical Windows PC is still required for creating games for Windows and any consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • A separate physical Mac is still required for creating games for macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and tvOS - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • When targeting a Mac, we would highly recommend both machines are connected to your network using Ethernet, rather than WiFi, as this can result in issues when building large projects for YYC.

 

Steamworks Support

  • If you are using a current GameMaker release along with our Steamworks extension, then please check the extension's own support page for information on which SDK version it requires.

 

 

GameMaker's Supported Export Platforms

 

Windows  (setup guide)

  • For building VM packages you don't need anything extra to be installed, as GameMaker includes everything required.
  • For building YYC packages you will need Visual Studio 2022 or 2019 (Community Editions are fine) installed and configured as per the relevant section in the setup guide above.
      • ARM64 YYC builds require VS 2022 and will not work with 2019
  • If you wish to use our GDK extension in order to support Xbox Live functionality in Windows games, then please note that you need to be an approved GDK developer with Microsoft before you will be able to request the extension from us or use it in your games - more information on the GDK system and applying for ID@Xbox can be found here.

For simply playing GameMaker games: All games are always 64bit. x64 has been supported for a long time and ARM64 is supported as of 2024.11.

 

Windows Versions Older Than 10

As of 2024.11, Vista and Windows 7 are no longer supported. The game will fail to launch properly.

For games built with pre-2024.11 GameMaker runtimes, your players will still need to ensure they have DirectX 11 installed, otherwise the game will not run. Certain functionality in  your game, like any websockets support in networking or various elements of security when doing HTTP requests, will prevent the use of Win 7 and Vista (or might at best require your players to install the final Win 7 Service Pack) and we are unable to do anything about this. Similarly, using any third-party extensions may have the ability to restrict this also, so please speak to the asset/extension author if you have any issues with older versions of Windows and your game.

XP is not supported at all. 

 

 

macOS  (setup guide)

  • Xcode 16 is supported in 2024.8 or newer
  • Xcode 15 is supported in 2023.11 or newer (plus specifically IDE v2023.8.2.106 with Runtime v2023.8.2.152)
  • Xcode 14.1 is the oldest version allowed by Apple for all notarisation uploads as of end Oct 2023, but realistically you likely should install and use at least Xcode 16, as iOS and tvOS submission rules require 16 (see lower down this page).
  • Therefore, you will also need macOS Sonoma 14.5 or newer in order to install Xcode 16 (macOS Ventura if you just need an older Xcode for macOS submissions)
  • If Xcode is not supported on your Mac, then we will try to support you as long as we can, but Apple will eventually stop your machine from being able to send apps to other people and there is nothing we can do about this.
  • All macOS apps are required to be uploaded to Apple and notarised once they have been built and code-signed. For detailed info, please see our FAQ about Apple's "notarization" policy.
  • If you're trying to use an older version of Xcode or macOS than mentioned immediately above, then you should update your tools/OS, as those old versions are not allowed by Apple now. They may work with GameMaker (certainly with older versions of GameMaker), but you would be limited to testing on your own Mac only.

For simply playing GameMaker games: OS X 10.9 or later is required for AppStore games and OS X 10.7 or later is required for non-AppStore games. All games are 64bit-only.

 

Ubuntu  (setup guide)

  • 2024.8+ supports Ubuntu 24 and 22 - always the 64bit LTS versions of these
  • 2024.6 and older supported Ubuntu 22 and 20 - always the 64bit LTS versions of these
  • No other Ubuntu versions or any other Linux distros are officially supported.

For simply playing GameMaker games: Ubuntu 16 or later is required. Other distros can usually run the games GameMaker generates with no issues, but we only state support for Ubuntu, so if you have issues playing games on these other platforms you will need to investigate this yourself. All games are 64bit-only.

 

GX.games  (setup guide)

  • 2023.11 and newer: Emscripten SDK v3.1.47
  • 2023.8 and older: Emscripten SDK v3.1.9

As part of GameMaker, everyone has the ability to publish their games to our GX.games community (for free) so that anyone else can play or indeed buy them.

There are no additional tools required to build VM projects (there are for YYC development), but be aware you must have the browser installed first in order to test your games, otherwise you will be shown a website asking you to install Opera GX.

You should also be aware of the device server which GameMaker will run in the background so you can deploy your games automatically on mobile devices you have connected to GameMaker. If you have any network/firewall issues, please see our guide about this server.

Note that this is a high-performance target much closer in functionality to Windows/Mac/etc., than it is to the HTML5 target.

 

HTML5

There are no additional tools required to build HTML5 projects, and the module supports a wide range of current browsers: all Chromium-based browsers (such as Opera/OperaGX, Chrome, Edge, and Vivaldi), plus Safari and Firefox. Mobile variants of all of these are supported also.

Please note that old IE 11 is not fully supported because it does not support WebGL, and some older mobile device browsers may have the same issue. However, you can usually run games in these browsers if WebGL is disabled in Game Options within your project.

 

Android  (setup guide)

Do not update Android Studio as soon as updates are offered, as you do not need new versions just because - and Google like to move files around, which might break your setup, so always check here first!

  • 2024.8/2024.11/2024.13 support up to and including Koala patch 2 - Inside Android Studio, on the SDK Platforms tab you just need to install the 1 item for API 35's "SDK Platform 35", and on the SDK Tools tab you need 3 items for "Android SDK Build-Tools 34.0.0" (because Gradle 8.5 installs 34 automatically and does not support 35), "NDK 27.0.12077973", and "Android SDK Platform-Tools 35.0.2"
  • Android's own tools may automatically install download and install additional packages as you do your builds inside GameMaker - this is fine, allow this! The values you have chosen inside Game Options will affect this also.
  • Google Play requires you to use API 30 or above when submitting
  • Minimum SDK Version supported is 21 for all games built using 2024.4+ and was 16 in older GameMaker releases
  • Please note some third-party extensions may require you to raise the minimum SDK version to their requirements, as will enabling "Run Lint code analysis". If your project fails to build, always review your entire compiler log for the exact versions you require, not just the last few lines.
  • Note that the below information is historical/only relevant if NOT submitting to Google Play - Google Play submission requirements mean you need to use a GameMaker version listed at the top of this section!
  • 2024.4/2024.6 supported up to and including Jellyfish - UpsideDownCake's "SDK Platform 34", "Android SDK Build-Tools 34.0.0", "NDK 26.3", and "Android SDK Platform-Tools 34"
  • 2023.2 supported Electric Eel onwards - Inside Android Studio install Tiramisu's "Platform SDK 33", "Android SDK Build Tools 33.0.2" and NDK 25.2
  • All older versions of GameMaker should use Android Studio Chipmunk (2021.2.1 Patch 1) - Inside Android Studio install Tiramisu's "Platform SDK 33", "Android SDK Build Tools 33.0.2" and NDK 24.0

For simply playing GameMaker games: GameMaker itself supports a wide range of Android OS versions, but Google Play does not (and Amazon requires fairly recent APIs also). You may find that you can build and test using old devices and old API versions, but you would not be able to publish these on some stores, and there is nothing we can do about this.

All games are 64bit-only.

 

iOS/iPadOS/tvOS  (iOS/iPadOS setup guide) (tvOS setup guide)

Xcode 14+ does not install tvOS runtimes automatically, so ensure you do install this optional component inside Xcode's settings before you try to do any tvOS builds

  • Please see the macOS section's notes a little higher up this page for Xcode/iOS/tvOS compatibility and which versions of macOS you must have in order to do iOS/tvOS development.
  • To submit to the AppStore, Apple require you to be using Xcode 16 and iOS/tvOS SDK 18 - see https://developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-requirements/ for the latest info
  • As of 2024.2 the minimum iOS version supported is 13, and in all GM versions prior to that it was 10 

Our docs and the GameMaker IDE do not refer to iPadOS as there currently is no fundamental change compared to regular iOS and so GameMaker's iOS packages work perfectly fine on iPadOS. We will obviously monitor this going forward and react if Apple make a breaking change, but for now just bear in mind if you have "iOS" you have "iPadOS" also.

For simply playing GameMaker games: iOS/iPadOS 13.0 or above, tvOS 12.0 or above. All games are 64bit-only.

 

 

Consoles

Please note you will only have access to the following links if you have been approved for the specific platform. If you wish to unlock access to a console (and can prove you're a licensed console developer!), please follow our Help Article that will explain the Application Process for Console Access.

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