Answer Questions

• Eusebiu Terrain Options

  Hi Whats better for implement terrain -Use the content pipeline for load then .x file with the terrain or -implement de class for convert the pixels of .raw file in vertex with the height (y axi) dependent of de gray color I have problem whit the first option becose a can't extract the vertexs of vertexbuffer becose the vertexbuffer is WriteOnly What I can do thank's riemerg wrote: Really makes you think about other possibilities. This would give the CPU a LOT of free time, if I get this correct all it has to do is create a flat grid once If the geomtry shader in 4.0 can also sample textures, the CPU will almost be completely useless Exactly. It puts all the work ...Show All

• Fuzon XNA with VertexBuffers only? (No loading content)

  I'm trying to create just a simple test app that draws some triangles on the screen.  I don't want to load any models, just use a VertexBuffer and IndexBuffer right now.  I load the buffers and set them on the GraphicsDevice.  When I call DrawIndexedPrimitives, I get the following error: "Both a valid vertex shader and  pixel shader (or valid effect) must be set on the device before draw operations may be performed." After some searching, I found a few people mentioning that your graphics driver must support vertex shader 2.0 and pixel shader 3.0.  The card isn't all that old, but to be sure, I checked the GraphicCapabilities on the GraphicsDevice and both the vertex and pixel shaders are 3.0.  So I don' ...Show All

• Rory Cahill 360 Deployment Issues

  Hello   I've downloaded the latest version of XNA: GSE, signed up to Creators Club, downloaded the launcher, created a key and entered it into GSE.  The 360 is sitting there waiting for a PC connection but the deployment just times out.   I've checked the subnet and they're both 255,255,255,0. It doesn't work whether it's wireless or wired. I can't ping it from the PC, it just times out. Got another pal to try pinging their 360 from their PC and they get a similar time out.   I've also made sure all the required ports are open, I think.  I'm not sure, we have a Belkin router and I've added the ports the docs say to add but I can't test whether they are actually open or not.   L ...Show All

• MacKenzieMi DreamBuildPlay is up!!!

  Now go register!!   Actual contest details to come the week of Feb 5th Plese, Someone at Microsoft.... the drembuildplay site, even though the competition should be global, does not allow non-US people to register. I don't live in the U.S., so I can't choose any state, the zipcodes in my country are 6 digits long, and the telephone numbers are not in the US format.  Edit: didn't see errolian's post before i posted this. P.S. did I mention I passed from neutral state, to exalted state and then down to low-morale state in about 2 minutes .... does this make me emotionally unstable The site is live and yes we realize there are a few things that ha ...Show All

• Jebat Will run from debugger, won't run from .EXE on same machine

  Ok, I've got my project building and running on the 360. A friend of mine wanted to see what I was up to, so I moved the source over to an PC hosted XNA project, and got it running there too. Before I sent the .EXE to him, I double clicked on it, and I just get a message box that says "Application generated an exception that could not be handled." This works fine under GSE, but doesn't seem to work when clicking directly through Windows. What am I missing Make sure you copy over all the files you're using, .exe, .dll, \Content, anything else you're using, not just the .exe You might also be linking to a file in an absolute path name. In VS, it might work fine because the file is ...Show All

• Rowdy19 Problem using effect in XNA

  Hi, I am trying to run a simple program and keep getting the following error. Both a valid vertex shader and pixel shader (or valid effect) must be set on the device before draw operations may be performed. I have set the current technique and done the basic effect.Begin cycle through the pass yet it keeps coming up. I've seen countless samples and I can't figure out what is the cause. Here is my effect file: float4x4 ViewProj : VIEWPROJECTION; float4x4 Worlds[200]; texture UserTexture : TEXTURE; sampler textureSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <UserTexture>; mipfilter = LINEAR; }; struct VS_INPUT { float3 Position : POSITION; float3 Normal : NORMAL; float2 TextureCoordinate : TEXCOORD0; float Ins ...Show All

• bennymacca Question: Mouse Input in 2D Games

  Hi, I am having problems figuring out how to develope code for mouse input. I have already figured out how to draw a mouse cursor on the screen and move it with the mouse. Now I just need to know how use the buttons of the mouse. Say for example I want to click on a button on the screen. How exactly do I get the mouse button input to do that I have checked MSDN help section and found it rather confusing. If there is a tutorial out there that I could use then that would be great. Thanks. Hi, You can use Mouse.GetState() to retreive the mouse button state. An example is shown below : if (Mouse .GetState().LeftButton == ButtonState .Pressed) Hope this helps. Andy ...Show All

• Buddhika Jayawardhane What's difference between Express and Professional?

  I've installed the Express edition beta 1, but I have interesting to the Professional edition. I thought the Professional edition should have more classes than Express edition, but I've never seen any documentation to compare the class library of each edition. Could you tell me the differences of them, particularly about class library Or I'd be happy if I could find the reference manual of XNA Game Studio Professional on the net. Thanks, Hayashida It looks to me like they intentionally removed useful functionality that was in DirectX so they could make you BUY something to write your own games that are more complex, so I'd start a trust fund if I were you... What ...Show All

• Keith Lee XNA + Bluetooth

  I am new to game development but have been trying to learn everything I can about XNA and what it can do, so far I have yet to find any articles (I could just be missing them) about using XNA to inject your own Bluetooth operatibility for various Bluetooth devices on your Xbox 360. Is this possible - I think it is, but I imagine I am going into uncharted lands The Xbox 360 does not have support for Bluetooth. I am fairly certain of that. There is no network API in the Xbox 360 version of the XNA Framework or base class library. I'm not even sure Xbox 360 supports connecting to Bluetooth devices, but if it does, then we did not expose it. --Stephen ...Show All

• computerology Spare 360 power supply to help with XNA development

  I have to move my xbox from the tv room to my computer room for doing XNA development - probably the same story for many of you here. So I figured I would just buy a second set of cables so it was easier to move - I can find the video cables all over but there appears to be no way to get a second power supply. There's a couple on ebay but they want $120 with shipping which seems a little much. So what is the magic search voodoo to find a spare one at a reasonable price. I have had some success using remote desktop but its a real pain to go from 2x21" monitors to a single laptop screen... i do whireless i my place all include my coffe maschine is wireless conected so i just send a command to the coffe maschine and ...Show All

• Jonathan Allen XBOX360 DirectX Graphics Caps?

  Can someone post, or let me know where I can find a listing of the XBOX360's Graphics Capabilities: like those displayed under "Graphics Adapters" in the DirectX Caps Viewer on Windows CanAutoGenerateMipMap : False That's quite surprising! Given it has cool render-to-texture functions, actually generating the MIP maps using target rendering would be a snap. Annoying if you have to do it yourself. Would help to know what you expect to be able to do with the capabilities. Technically speaking the xbox 360 GPU supports, everything the Radeon X1K-Series does. In-fact performance wise it's on-par with the X1600. Key aspects to remember when using the card is the 10MB T-RAM, used for the frameb ...Show All

• Richard Abrahams XNA - Microsoft lack of vision

  Its real sad that Microsoft, once again, shows this lack of vision for a games development tool: 1: Get visual: Don't force users to write such a lot of code to do just very little. It reminds the Charles Petzold's "Hello Window" hell of code days. 2: Provide visual tools: Let users choose the components, change their properties and write just the required code for the events. 3: Quick development means quick prototype and minimum learning curve. XNA has a lot of things to learn. Definetively it is NOT for students and hobbists. We will have to wait until someone encapsulates XNA framework into a group of visual components, that can be easily drag & dropped, inspected and tested very easily without having to learn lots of n ...Show All

• barkingdog Destructible terrain 2D

  Greetings, For lerning XNA i figured why not make a Space Invaders clone in 2D. But something escaped me, being the novice i am. How do i make the shields destroyable, as far i can se it makes no sense to make each shield one sprite. So my question is how do i build these do i build them from 1000 spirtes the size of one pixel. or do i make one sprite and overlay the destruction in some way. I dont know how to do this, anyone care to share ideas br Lasse Knudsen Which is #2. How about you take half and I'll take half then. Yeah, I started thinking. Ooo..That would be a fun one to make! And then my exact next thought was, Just what I need anothe ...Show All

• spshah Proper use of GameComponent? (yet another post about them)

  I've seen a lot of posts regarding proper use of GameComponents. I'd like to get some feedback on how I intend to use a GameComponent for a simple SriteManager. Here is how I intend to architect my Srite Management System 'Sprite' will be a simple custom sprite object. 'SpriteManager' will be a normal c# class that encapsulates all logic for managing Sprites. It will maintain a list of sprites and it will have Add, Remove, and Draw functionality (it will Draw using an ecapsulated SpriteBatch object). 'ISpriteManagerService' will define an interface that is implemented by SpriteManager. Essentially this interface will be a subset of the functionallity contained in SpriteManager and will only expose metho ...Show All

• BJHop XNA Framework / Architecture

  The XNA Framework resides in the Microsoft.XNA.Framework namespace.  It adopts a layered architecture to provide services. There are four layers defined.  From lowest to highest these are: Platform Core Framework Extended Framework Games / Application The lower three layers are implemented by Microsoft and the upper layer (Games/Application) is a placeholder layer.  What I mean by that is that the Games/Application layer represents the code that you write as part of your game or 3rd party/community reusable components that you use. Looking in to each layer we can see that they each provide a set of classes that wrap up some set of functionality: Platform This is the lowest level layer and repres ...Show All