Construct 2 on a Macbook?

Hi all,

I am looking to replace my aging 11" macbook air for iOS and web development and my bulky Dell laptop for high school teaching use and to consolidate them into one machine. A few questions about running Construct 2 on a mac:

1. I have seen other people running Construct 2 on VMWare and on Parallels. VMWare seemed like it had fewer issues (there seemed to be a problem with tiled backgrounds not tiling in preview on Parallels?). Does anyone have any experience with this?

2. Does anyone have any experience with running a retina display in Construct 2? I read on a few forums that windows and retina don't play well together.

Pros and cons

11" macbook air - I LOVE this form factor. The size is perfect for carrying between classes, as the device fits perfectly in a single hand along with a stack of papers. In addition, the solid state drive allows me to get 87 seconds of work done if I have 90 seconds between bells. The battery life is a little short though.

13" macbook air - This one has a bigger battery and a bigger screen. More pixels would be nice in Fireworks and Construct 2. But is it too big? I'm not sure

13" macbook pro retina - This one is even bigger still. I'm worried that it would be too clunky to carry in one hand with papers from class to class. I like the idea of double the pixels, but I'm afraid the screen density wouldn't play well with Construct 2.

Does anyone have any experience with running Construct 2 in a virtual machine? What about a retina display?

Please understand that windows-based machines are not an option.

Previously, I was able to run it on my Mac Pro 13 using Parallel Desktop. However, I cannot run it anymore during some update last week. Don't know why hummmmm.

Have you tried using virtualbox? I use in on my pc to run a number of different virtual computers - faster and more stable than vmware

Has anyone had any luck running Construct 2 with Parallels? I'm running a Win8 VM in Parallels 8 and when starting a new project or opening a sample it just crashes immediately.

Ok, I found this post (scirra.com/forum/construct-2-on-mac-osx_p743885?#p743885) which seemed to solve the problem. Just uninstall Parallels Tools from within Windows. That appears to resolve this insta-crashing! Good luck!

Virtualbox is great, and free

sonofbryce, thanks for finding that thread. It looks like VMWare seems to be the most reliable, with Virtualbox great as well.

How does Construct 2 look on a retina display?

Hi,

I'm using VMWare with my Mac and work perfect!

VMWare fusion works great! Wouldn´t go for 11" screen, though, if you want to work comfortably in Construct2. A small screen easily gets annoying.

I tried the Macbook Pro 13". Although the screen was great, the whole machine is too darn heavy and bulky for my purposes.

The 11" Macbook Air is absolutely awesome. The only problem I have found is that the framerate is pretty darn low (~20 fps) running Chrome preview in Virtualbox. This isn't really a bad thing though, as it gives me a better idea of what will slow down my apps when I export them to iOS/Android. I just export it out to the OS X side to see how it looks in full speed.

I'm using a macbook air 13 for everyday use, i see myself as a real critic when it is about weight of my laptop... I personally think 11 is too small, i've had 12.3 laptop too but wanted something a bit bigger but not larger than 13, so the macbook air 13" was the perfect choice for me. You should consider upgrading to i7 and 8gb ram, it is well worth it. I try to avoid using virtual machines and or bootcamp, instead i'm reporting bugs, testing and try to make Construct 2 work in wine. I'm still hoping that Scirra one day will hire more employees and make a mac port or get support from wine developers and make it work efficiently.

Construct 2 is only supported on windows. Its IDE is designed for windows and I don't think there is any plans to change this. If you are buying a new machine specifically for Construct 2 development it seems daft to buy something that is not supported.

My use case:

I am a high school teacher first and an iOS/web developer second. Last school year I carried around a 6.5-pound Windows laptop for school use and Construct 2 development, an 11" Macbook Air for web and iOS development, and an iPad for lectures and activities. I rotate between six different rooms throughout the day, and lugging all three devices plus several classes worth of papers was cumbersome and prone to spills.

In addition, I spend a lot of time walking around the classroom with a device in one hand so I have the other hand free to write and gesture. This was fine for the Macbook Air and the iPad, but very difficult to do with the Windows laptop.

Being able to do almost everything (except run iOS apps) from my laptop is a godsend. I am looking forward to a much easier time next year.

As far as screen size goes, the 11" Macbook Air has the exact same resolution as the various Windows laptops I have been using, so no big difference there. We have released several iOS apps, including one with massive storyboards and over 1000 source code files, all done on the 11" Air. There were a few times in the past few years that I wished I had a larger screen, but both xcode and Construct 2 have great zoom features that make 1366 x 768 completely usable.

In summary:

After several weeks running Construct 2 in Virtualbox I am completely satisfied. Its portability makes for a way more pleasant working experience than either of my Windows laptops (13" and 17"). The only things that drive me a little crazy right now are the Mac version of MS Word and MS Excel, but I suppose I will get used to them.