Answer Questions

• MaggieChan WinFX and XNA Framework

  Hi, How exactly is WinFX related to XNA Framework WinFX is also a class library that can handle 2D and 3D in a window environment. I guess WinFX targets apps and XNA targets games, but is there a clearer definition of the relation between the two Multimedia apps, but surely that's overlap with WPF Take the namesapce System.Windows.Media - which is in WPF. I understand the different markets, and the control over texture loading etc. but doesn't it make sense to have a good integration story Ideally WPF apps should be able to run on top of XNA, and therefore run on the XBOX 360. WinFX is more than a class library for handling 2D and 3D. WinFX is the .NET Framework 3.0 . Call it .NET 2. ...Show All

• davidg12 XNA-GSE 1.0 ... uninstall Beta 2 first?

  When Beta 2 supplanted Beta 1, we needed to uninstall Beta 1 first. Same story, or no PLEASE add this information to the announcements from now on... thanks. I always assumed it's a given that you should uninstall any beta versions before installing the retail. Maybe it's just me though. David Weller - MSFT wrote: How about you read the "README" first That's why we wrote it :) Kthx. README C'mon. If those had useful info, it'd be called something else ;) J/k, thx. I figured the answer was yes, I just jumped the gun... When you begin the install, the installer detects previous versions and notifies you that you ...Show All

• Whoisit DirectX9 and Vista Sidebar

  Doing some testing with my old DX9 code on vista RC1 x64. When i render in fullscreen the sidebar keeps flickering on top of the window. What can cause this I don't have this problem when running other games, so it must be something in my code :( Hi, I'm having the exact same problem. 1 >> ATI Radeon 1300 with standard vista drivers or newest driver 2 >> compiled 32 bit 3 >> 32bit version of the games 4 >> 1 >>> ATI Radeon 9550 with standard vista drivers 2 >>> Compiled 32 Bit 3 >>> 32Bit version of the games that don't have this issue 4 >>> Follows later, not home at the moment :) ...Show All

• fcatacutan Why is Game not a singleton?

  I'm a bit puzzled by this  - why is the game class not a singleton, i.e. there is and can be only ever one instance of it. I can't quite see any sensible reason to have more than one of them, but as it doesn't seem to be a singleton, I have to hold a reference to it anywhere I want to access game services from. Otherwise I could have just written Game.Instance.Services when I wanted access to them. Or perhaps I have missed something obvious (I know I can make my class that is derived from Game use this pattern, I'm just curious as to why it wasn't done like this in the framework in case I shouldn't be doing it either). Design patterns are used to solve common problems. What problem wou ...Show All

• JGP Need high precission zbuffer, but using non d16 fails in clear.. not in create

  I have a large mesh which i need to show all at once. I can not sort the rendering and play arround with painters algorithm, since it is updated real-time, and i do not have the time to be fancy. Sometimes i need to look at the mesh very close, and still I can see parts of it far far away. For this I need a high precission z-buffer. Sadly D32 is not supported yet, but the odd thing is when i ude D24S8 or D24Single8. The device is created just fine, but when I try to clear the zbuffer, before rendering a new scene, d3d fails with "no zbuffer is associated with device. Clear failed." This seems a bit odd. I ask for a zbufer and device is created fine, but I didnt get one I create as this... presentParams = new ...Show All

• chatz Analog stick "holes"

  Does anyone else have odd ... holes ... in the values returned from the analog sticks For example, if I push my left analog straight up very slowly, I see the Y value stay at 0 for a little while, then it jumps to ~0.25 and climbs steadily to 1. Likewise with the X, and it happens in both directions for both sticks. Also, if I peg the stick up and slowly roll it clockwise, Y stays at 1, X at 0, then after a while X jumps to 0.25 and climbs steadily. As I get close to straight to the right, Y approaches 0.25, then drops straight to 0. Am I alone IE: is it likely my hardware Or is this something other people see IE: likely software ah. missed that when I searched. didn't think of the &quo ...Show All

• Splotz Disable transparency in terrain (star field shown thru terrain)

  (Note: I am not able to format my code with PRE tags so I have to show you the code without fixed-width and unformatted/dedented code anyway.) I have an image that I want to show to you: http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/961/terrainglasssw9.png As you can see, there's transparency in terrain even though there's no alpha channel in TGA but I tried other file formats like PNG and DDS but no help so I am going to show you the FX code: float4x4 WorldViewProjection : WORLDVIEWPROJECTION; texture UserTexture; float4x4 xRot; float4 xLightPos; float xLightPower; float4 eye; struct VS_OUTPUT { float4 position : POSITION; float2 textureCoordinate : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : TEXCOORD1; float3 position3D : TEXCOORD ...Show All

• brenzy Shaders without effects on the 360

  According to the documentation, functions such as ShaderCompiler.CompileFromFile are only available when developing in windows. Does this mean that you cannot compile a shader without an effect on the 360 In order to incorporate an xna rendering mode into my engine, I really need to be able to do this. Thanks, that's perfect. Ok, I actually found the documentation in question, but could use some clarification. The PixelShaderProcessor class there actually uses the windows only ShaderCompiler.CompileFromSource method. Is this class used at build time to compile the shader in windows, prior to sending the now compiled shader to the xbox ...Show All

• Oliwa Creators Club Benefits

  "Both subscriptions provide aspiring game developers with access to thousands of game assets from Microsoft and key partners such as Turbo Squid Inc., as well as white papers, specialized starter kits, samples and technical product support to help turn Your World, Your Game into a reality." Am I missing something here Where can I get access to these 'specialized starter kits' and 'samples' Have I been deceived into buying this subscription If so, is there some way I can get my money back Maybe I'm missing something... I understand your complaint. I shared it initially as well hoping to have all sorts of starter kits available. But to tell you the truth, game design depe ...Show All

• lfassio Setting Anisotropy level....

  Just need to check if I am doing this right. I want to set the Anisotropy levels. //initialize Anisotropy settings private void InitAnisotropy() { if (device.GraphicsDeviceCapabilities.TextureFilterCapabilities.SupportsMinifyAnisotropic) { device.SamplerStates[0].MinFilter = TextureFilter.Anisotropic; } else if (device.GraphicsDeviceCapabilities.TextureFilterCapabilities.SupportsMinifyLinear) { device.SamplerStates[0].MinFilter = TextureFilter.Linear; } if (device.GraphicsDeviceCapabilities.TextureFilterCapabilities.SupportsMagnifyAnisotropic) { device.SamplerStates[0].MagFilter = TextureFilter.Anisotropic; } else ...Show All

• Sonnie-Cakes XBOX deploy - content issue

  Hi I've written my first simple XNA Xbox project, simply draws a triangle and applies an effect. When I deploy to the XBOX and debug, I get file not found on my effect file. The file is stored in a folder called Content then FX, file called myfirsttest.fx I load it using this command and get file not found myFirstFX= content.Load< Effect >( @"content\FX\myfirsttest" ); I've tried every combination I can think of, still says file not found everytime. Actual error :- Additional information: Error loading "content\FX\myfirsttest". File not found. Help!!! I think there is a bug I had similar problems. I had graphics files under a folder graphics and it ...Show All

• DennisS Exporting from blender?

  Has anyone gotten exporting from blender to work yet I'm using the .x export option that ships with blender, and while the basic mesh shape is correct, it appears that it's oriented along the wrong axis, and it appears that the normals are flipped. I've tried several combinations of the export options, but haven't found the magic working one yet. Thanks, Ryan Thanks GILLT, I made sure I had the latest dx exporter, and I still had some problems with inverted normals, so what I did is I just pre-flipped my normals in blender, exported to .x, and then flipped them back. It's hacky, but it's enough to keep me moving for now. Ryan As long as you are getting someth ...Show All

• yoshimitu Capture output from other compilers

  Hi. Not sure whether this question belongs in this forum or a more generic MSBuild one, but here goes. From reading responses to questions about using non Microsoft compilers (e.g. gcc) with MSBuild/XNABuild it seems that the conventional wisdom is to use the Exec task. However, the documentation for this states "One disadvantage of using the Exec task rather than a more specific task is that it cannot gather output from the tool or command that it runs." I am investigating MSBuild/XNABuild for use in a potentially multi-platform project, and would like to know if this caveat would mean that the display/parsing of compilation errors would be suppressed when using, for instance, gcc. The ideal goal would be to use Visual Studio as ...Show All

• Mike Chapman Multiuser games?

  Just curious... but has anyone used XNA/C# to develop MOG's or even MMOG's I am really not sure about using properties in a game, sure they are great for business apps where encapsulation could be important but for a game engine... im really unsure. Infact I did a little test to see if setting a public field directly is faster than setting a private field through a public property. For 1000000000 iterations of getting and setting a property VS the same iterations for getting and setting a value of a public field. it took approx 12ns for each iteration of the property and approx 3ns for each iteration of the field. of course my test might be innacurate with only me judging it and the code I used may not be a legitimate test but ...Show All

• Pipe2Path When is LoadGraphicsContent(true) called?

  Hi, I'm wondering if LoadGraphicsContent(true) is ever called by XNA (rather than client code) except for when the game is first started. The reason I care is that if I have to reload, for example, a Texture that a few different objects are still using, I have to make sure that they use the new Texture reference rather than their old one, which is now dead. Basically: am I guaranteed that LoadGraphicsContent(true) is never called except when the application first starts up and when I call it myself It appears that's how it's supposed to be, but from the documentation I'm not 100% sure. Thanks, Max If you switch to full screen mode and then alt-tab to switch to another process and back again the dev ...Show All