Hi, I am a windows developer working on Visual Studio. Need I switch to MacOS for cocos2d-x development, when the target is iPhone, iPad and Android devices?
Shout I switch to MacOS must or just develop on windows and then port to other platform?
Thank you.
Both ways are possible. But I can give you a few notes:
* XCode itself is the best IDE for rapid development in C*+ . QtCreator is the best for code mantanance. Other variants like Visual Studio 2012 and Eclipse CDT are not so convient.
* Android emulator is slow and setting up native code debugger in Eclipse is hard. Eclipse* emulator also need computer with ~8GB memory and will slow down whole system otherwise. So port to android at final step, but try to avoid using platform-specific APIs, or create own cocos2d extensions with multiple platform-dependent backends.
* Right now win32 version have issues in CocosDenshion: no volume control and mp3/ogg support. You should maintain project file for Visual Studio when using windows. You will not see perfomance issues running game directly on windows.
So XCode + ios simulator + ios and android devices for periodical testing is the best choice for indie developer. Actually there some personal flavours, for example, I have deep knowledges in QtCreator (and some contibutions to qt-project repository), so I prefer QtCreator+Linux for any prototyping and can avoid common problems of such environment.
miao dadao wrote:
Hi, I am a windows developer working on Visual Studio. Need I switch to MacOS for cocos2d-x development, when the target is iPhone, iPad and Android devices?
Shout I switch to MacOS must or just develop on windows and then port to other platform?
>
Thank you.
I am a long time iOS Developer and have worked on many projects, and honestly XCode is great for Objective-C but not for C**. Recently however I just started developing my next game in Cocos2d-X and decided to give AppCode a try over XCode. AppCode is made by JetBrains, who are well known in the visual studio world for writing completely awesome plugins. I was suspicious at first but I have to say that AppCode is hands down better than XCode at developing C** games and it does a fantastic job of integrating with XCode’s tools when it needs to. bullet list of reasons go!
I sound like an infomercial right now, but it’s totally worth it.
You don’t need to switch platforms for developing, stay close to your favourite IDE and use others for building platform specific solutions. I’m using Code:Blocks (http://www.codeblocks.org/ available for all 3 major platforms) for coding and Eclipse for building and running on my Android device, have installed Mac OS X on VirtualBox with XCode, would use it for final builds on iOS (for now I’m just testing for Linux/Android).
@Krunoslav Radem
What OSX you use i have a lot of problem with installing it on VirtualBox
Thanks.
What OSX you use i have a lot of problem with installing it on VirtualBox
Mountain Lion
Work useable on Windows 7 64 host with Dual Core E5500 with 4GB RAM (2GB RAM for OS X, 20GB SSD disk). These days that machine would get another 4GB of RAM and changed host to Debian 64bit and I except to act better.
Just so you know, mp3 appears to work on Win32
Krunoslav Radem wrote:
> What OSX you use i have a lot of problem with installing it on VirtualBox
>
Mountain Lion
http://www.macbreaker.com/2013/01/iatkos-ml2-mountain-lion-virtualbox.html
>
Work useable on Windows 7 64 host with Dual Core E5500 with 4GB RAM (2GB RAM for OS X, 20GB SSD disk). These days that machine would get another 4GB of RAM and changed host to Debian 64bit and I except to act better.
Thanks now i now why i have problems
“Computers with AMD processors will not work with”
Just an experience sharing.
I am now working with Windows for Android platform, at the beginning it is a little bit troublesome to setup the environment. (Not sure if 3 days are long or not)
But as I am used to Visual Studio, after a while it has no problem. Even I have tried to a small version upgrade (it takes me a little bit more than half day) and add something to extension.
I didn’t directly work with iOS yet but as I put the code on source control that I have a friend helping me to test on iOS which seems not big trouble.
But the point is that the Android emulator is totally cannot use. You will need a debugging device which can activate debug mode.
“Computers with AMD processors will not work with”
AFAIK you have problem with this solution. If you cannot make your guest working after you enable virtualization in BIOS for your proccessor, maybe you may try with some previous MAC OS X - there are some solutions for AMD processors.
good tips:D
Sergey Shambir wrote:
Both ways are possible. But I can give you a few notes:
* XCode itself is the best IDE for rapid development in C*+ . QtCreator is the best for code mantanance. Other variants like Visual Studio 2012 and Eclipse CDT are not so convient.
* Android emulator is slow and setting up native code debugger in Eclipse is hard. Eclipse* emulator also need computer with ~8GB memory and will slow down whole system otherwise. So port to android at final step, but try to avoid using platform-specific APIs, or create own cocos2d extensions with multiple platform-dependent backends.
* Right now win32 version have issues in CocosDenshion: no volume control and mp3/ogg support. You should maintain project file for Visual Studio when using windows. You will not see perfomance issues running game directly on windows.
>
So XCode + ios simulator + ios and android devices for periodical testing is the best choice for indie developer. Actually there some personal flavours, for example, I have deep knowledges in QtCreator (and some contibutions to qt-project repository), so I prefer QtCreator+Linux for any prototyping and can avoid common problems of such environment.
XCode is the best IDE for rapid development in C**? I strongly disagree — Visual Studio has been the RAD C** IDE of choice since Borland feel apart.
The best part about this toolchain is the variety. I love Visual Studio, so I use it. Sergey loves XCode and QtCreator, so he uses that.
There is no right answer — you’ll need something that lets you write great cross-platform C++ and you’ll need access to the compilers.
Beyond that — up to you.