Answer Questions

• Mike Batton Is adding every asset used to the project a necessity.

  As I ask this, I suspect that the answer may be that I just don't know enough about the content pipeline. In previous hobbyist games I've worked on, it's been common to have a file that specifies a level or UI setup including which textures to load. The game parsed this file and loaded the textures appropriately. This separated the art from the code and allowed artists to modify or create new levels without any work in Visual Studio. My understanding is that any asset that is used must now be added to VisualStudio if it is to be loaded through the ContentManager. Does this mean that when I create such a file which defines a level (including all assets) I must also add all of these assets to VisualStudio This seems.... to put it directl ...Show All

• Tao Wang CSI Game freezes every few seconds

  Hi, Every few seconds my game freezes and then resumes. The time of the freezes varies depending on debug/release or if i am debugging in visual studio. Also, when i run in debug mode with debugging sometimes* the program freezes permanently. But if i put a breakpoint in, it breaks, then when i continue it works fine. Its wierd. I am using threads for parts of my program but im certain my code is fine. Are there any bugs with regard to threads and freezing in xna help please. i thought what you thought: The threads are in contention. So i removed all resource sharing but the problem is still here. This did fix the problem of the entire program locking up when i launch, but not the ...Show All

• Ali Katouzian getting started

  hello, im new to game developement (and these forums), and have a questions. first, im only in highschool, and want to get into game programming. obviously i really dont have the expierience (or patience) to learn all those languages and databases, but i want to know a good place to start, since one day i want to be a pro. i have been messing around with flash and stuff but is that a good way to start, since when im an adult i want to be ready for the next gen systems what should i start learning first Any tools that you use are good because you get involved in the subject. Since you’re still in school then you really want to concentrate on the maths and physics, a lot of the books you get on the s ...Show All

• brother14th Qs about Multiplayer game

  me plan to do a 2D multiplayer action game. Not plan too far for the MMO, but just a party around 8~20 players at once, something like Counter-Strike/Freelancer, players can travel around in a big map. me never did this before, so that me not sure my logic is correct or not. here my communication flow between [game server] and [client] 1. [client] collect player input and process 2. [client] send player input(or make it simple as command) to server 3. [server] receive client command, process it and boardcast the result to clients 4. [client] client receive server command, process and update my questions is: assume that my client running in 60 FPS 1. what the frequency that me have to collect the input and send the command to se ...Show All

• George Giolfan Draw Texture2D in 3D space

  I'm fairly new to XNA and I've hit quite a simple problem that I'm not sure how to fix. I'm wanting to create a simple Asteroids style game with 3D models to teach myself XNA. I have the 3D model loaded correctly and I'm using an orthographic camera so that it looks like a 2D game. Anyway, the problem is, I'm wanting my 3D model to fire bullets. Now, I've been an OpenGL programmer for quite a while and this is an extremely simple thing to do in OpenGL. Either by drawing GL_POINTS or creating a GL_QUAD and texturing it, effectively using it as a billboard. I have an image I want to use for the bullets and have loaded it into a Texture2D but I have no idea how implement this in my game in a 3D scene. The only way I can think of doing it is t ...Show All

• koder monkey Embedding resources: Is it the answer for screensavers?

  Hi all, I'm about 90% finished with my XNA Starfield screensaver, and I'm wondering what the best solution is for storing my textures and whatnot. I think it'll be very clunky to add any content files to the System32 folder along with the .scr, so I've been trying to come up with a good spot for them. Wouldn't it be best to embed the files within the .exe and just load them from there I'm trying to get confirmation on this, as I've already found a guide for loading embedded files here: http://www.plasmaflux.com/Tutorials/Embedded/Embedded.htm Note: I've currently got my screensaver saving its configuration data to the user's Application Data folder + '\XNA Starfield\settings.dat' (via basic .NET file I/O stuff). Is there a better place th ...Show All

• rocky_don Learning a programming language AND game programming concepts simultaneously a pipe dream?

  I'm tryig to learn C# programming with the aim of creating games, but boy is it a struggle. I think the stumbling block for most people (and I include myself in this group) whose primary interest in programming is games related, is that a large conceptual leap is required between document-based programming and real-time programming - and there simply isn't any sufficient discussion or tutorials explaining the fundamentals of the concept to ease the transition. The basic problem is anyone who starts out learning a language like C# pretty much finds themself with nothing but books teaching the language from the perspective of programming forms, event-handlers, interacting with controls  and basically looking at exer ...Show All

• CharlieRussell Please Post First Impressions Here.

  For the working stiff's like myself, could those of you who have successfully downloaded GSE post you first impressions here. Thanks. can you use it with vs 2005 the setup says, that i dont have the express edition.. but i do have vs 2005. It definatly looks like a great framework! I started working on my game using XNA, and so far I haven't run into any problems! Although the naming convetion in the framework is different from the one I use, it shouldn't cause problems. Once we get some good tutorials out, I'm sure we will be seeing some good games. Also, the documentation rocks! GJ Microsoft. GMS0012 wrote: can you use it with vs 2005 ...Show All

• Jym How to distribute a PC-based XNA game?

  I looked in the documentation about releasing a PC-specific game and all I got was XBox 360 distribution. I'm working on a PC game that has no need for the XBox 360, just to be clear. I'm curious in what runtime files I need I'm sure it requires .NET 2.0, DirectX 9.0c, but are there some extra dlls that I need Thanks in advanced. Its *VERY* likely that the XNA DLLs will not be redistributable. This is the model that the DirectX team and the .Net team has followed and since the assemblies are installed in the GAC its the correct behaviour. You end up with multiple copies of the assemblies and in the case of a security hole MS will not be able to find and patch them all. This is also why you should not use ...Show All

• Pramod M Poor XNA performance or my poor code... or normal?

  I've have created a simple scene that renders 8000 identical cubes. I know thats a lot of cubes, but I only get 4 FPS on a 2.0ghz dual core with a 7300 mobile graphics card at 640x480 with simply vertex shading and one directional light. This pc can run doom3 at 60FPS at that resolution and a program i wrote in MDX that draws about 1000 detailed spheres with specular lighting runs at over 100FPS Here is the code I'm using: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Storage; namespace WindowsGame1 { public class Game1 : Mic ...Show All

• El Masidy How much of a 3D engine will be included in the XNA Framework?

  In the DX samples there are the samples framework. Will that be built upon or will there be a separate 3D engine included or downloadable - What I am looking for is some kind of scene graph - Lighting and materials - Shader loader, constant setter etc. I am guessing since Torque are releasing their engine for this we will not see a full featured engine included but will there be an embryo that is more than the DX sample framework Regards Joachim That's excellent! I guess I have to do some of the programming myself :). Some nice to haves: - It would be great with a white paper regarding scen graphs and other structural information to help out with the implementation - Ways to ...Show All

• jovert DirectX8 and Vista Compatibility

  (split from http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=1221168  to make a new question) It is interesting that you say that because I am testing a VB6 app that was working fine on XP and below but now fails on Vista when it tries to create a DirectX8 object, specifically Set oDX = new DirectX8 throws Error 429, ActiveX failed to create component. Running in XP SP2 compatibility mode does not work either. I would be really grateful if anyone has any ideas on this.  I also tried running the latest DX9 redistributable because I heard that was providing backward compatibility, but to no avail. Thanks. I am awaiting a reply from the DirectX team - their response tim ...Show All

• Jonathan Gauthier Rendering to a Texture?

  I tried to do a search but kept getting an error message. I was wondering if anyone had an example on how to render to a texture under XNA. Thx Sorry, I should have included this in my previous post. It will throw the exception anytime the ResourceUsage is set to RenderTarget. I tried fiddling with the texture dimensions, levels and ResourcePool. It's possible your video card doesn't support rendering directly to textures. In that case use GraphicsDevice.CreateRenderTarget(...), and use GraphicsDevice.UpdateSurface(...) to copy from that to your textures top surface. m_texture = new Texture2D(graphics.GraphicsDevice, 256 ...Show All

• Tryst Texture transparency using the content manager

  So before beta 2, I was using TextureCreationParameters to set the transparent color of my Texture2D ojbects and passing it into the Texture2D.FromFile params. Now I'm using content.Load<Texture2D> to load all my Textures, and I don't really see a way to set the transparent color. I know you can use the DX texture tool to just change the texture file, but I am pretty much editing my artwork every time I build my game so that's a lot of extra work I would like to avoid. Any Ideas Transparent Color is generally a bad idea, because with filtering, you will get color fringes. However, the content pipeline texture processor has an option where the transparent color will be magenta. (Content pr ...Show All

• prthealien Automatically add classes

  Is it possible to automatically add an existing class when creating a new project I have a bitmap font class that will be used in every project and I don't want to have to go through the hastle of adding it every time. The best way to do that (either with your class as part of the project or your class an attached dll to the project) is to create a new project. template. To create a project template, get a project base looking how you want it to look with all the class and dlls you think you will always want for future game projects. Then once you are doing creating that project, click on the "File" menu and select "Export Template". This will open up the template export wizard. Walki ...Show All