This article details the required versions of the various tools and SDKs that GameMaker Studio 2 uses.

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

Be aware also that for everything below we only offer support for physical machines running a single OS natively - not VMs (including Parallels), Bootcamp, "Hackintosh" Macs, or emulators, etc.

The following sections refer to IDE v2.1.5.322 using Runtime v2.1.5.246

For the Windows IDE

See general system specifications in the popup on the GMS2 info page
Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 is required when building Windows YYC or anything to do with UWP or consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics
(VS2015/VS2017 requires Win 7 with SP1 or above - it won't install without at least SP1)
A separate physical Mac is still required for targeting Mac and iOS - see the target's own section below for specifics

For the Mac IDE

See general system specifications in the popup on the GMS2 info page
Xcode is required to be installed separately before you can test/create Mac and iOS packages - see the target's own section below for specifics
Mono v4.8.0 is required for building any projects - this should be downloaded and installed automatically during your first run of GMS2 (if your Mac doesn't already have Mono), but if for any reason this fails you can download the installer from http://gm2016.yoyogames.com/MonoFramework-MDK-4.8.0.520.macos10.xamarin.universal.pkg
An Apple Developer account is required before you can test/create Mac and iOS packages, as you will need Xcode to sign the application as per Apple's requirements
A separate physical Windows PC is still required for targeting Windows, UWP or consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics

For Building/Running Games

General

Spine 3.4.02 can be used outside of GMS to export compatible Spine sprites (3.5.xx is usually fine, 3.6.xx/3.7.xx can give issues especially when using new functionality).
Steamworks SDK 1.42 if you're doing Steam builds (please use ONLY this version)

Windows (setup guide here)

Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10
XP is not supported at all
Vista will require manual download and install of DirectX 11 if you don't already have this (you need to communicate this to your Vista players also)

Mac (setup guide here)

For building AppStore projects you need Xcode 9.2+, which requires at least macOS Sierra 10.12.
For playing GM games, OS X 10.9 or later is required for AppStore games and OS X 10.6 or later is required for non-AppStore games
All games are 64bit-only as of 2.1.5

Note: macOS 10.14 Mojave is currently not supported.

Note: Xcode 10 is currently not supported by default, if you wish to use Xcode 10 please follow this guide.

Ubuntu (setup guide here)

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64bit is the only distro we support.
Other distros can run the game packages we generate and may also be used when building projects inside GMS, but we do not offer support for this.
All games are 64bit as of 2.1.3.

Note: Please note that we are investigating Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64bit currently and hope to have this available in the near future.

Android (setup guide here)

Android SDK Tools 28.0.0
Android 8.1.0 (API 27) (SDK Platform, Google APIs)
Android NDK 16b (64bit)
JDK 8u131 (64bit)

With the release of 2.1.4 we've introduced a new drop-down in Game Options for Android and Amazon Fire which will automatically fill in the values for the API you're wanting to target, based on what's actually installed on your machine, so please use the values chosen there.

With the release of 2.1.5 we've added in the ability to create 64 bit APKs which can be done through the Android Game Options.

Note: It is currently not possible to use Java JDK 9.0.4 as Gradle doesn't support this currently, so please do not use this version.

Note: Using Build Tools 26 or higher will require you to set the minimum SDK version to at least 14.

Note: Using NDK 17b will not work right now and will cause build failures. Please only use 16b or lower currently.

Support Libraries from 13.0.0 to 25.3.1 can be found here: [Your Android SDK install folder]\extras\android\m2repository\com\android\support\support-v4

Support Libraries from 26.0.0 onward can be found here: %USERPROFILE%\.gradle\caches\modules-2\metadata-2.21\descriptors\com.android.support\support-v4

iOS (setup guide here)

Xcode 9.3 (which requires macOS High Sierra 10.13.4+) is currently the most recommended version, as this is the only version which supports the current iOS version.
Xcode 9.2 is also supported if you're only developing for non-AppStore/non-commercial testing purposes, but anything older than 9.2 needs to be updated otherwise your builds will fail.
iOS 10.0 or above is required for games (Xcode doesn't build for older iOS versions now).

Note: iOS 12 is currently not supported.

Note: Xcode 10 is currently not supported.

UWP (setup guide for PC, for mobile, and for Xbox One)

Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017 can be used.
Windows 10 SDK 10.0.14393.0 is the SDK we suggest using.

Consoles

Please note: you will only have access to the following links if your YoYo Account is licensed as a registered console developer

PS4
Xbox One

GMS2 Required SDKs