Answer Questions

• nabeelfarid Developing solely on the XBox 360

  What major disadvantages are there in developing only on an XBox 360 My laptop here is not exactly a top-of-the-line gaming machine, which means that I can't run XNA games on it (no shaders). One option would be to just get a new PC, but for a student that's not exactly cheap, and I might not want to get a new one anyways before Vista comes out. One thing I heard might be a problem is profiling my code. I understand the only thing for profiling on the 360 is the GC profiler, which might not be quite enough. Will the situation get better in the future Should I just get a new PC or would the 360 be a good inexpensive solution for game development Yes, you must be signed-in to Live the entire time that you ...Show All

• alan666 ContentPipeline logging/debugging

  XNA Brains; I created some code that converts a BSP file into an XNA-renderable map file. It was on the xbox360homebrew.com site. I had everything working in the code, and then I decided to port it over to the ContentPipeline. (I'm liking the pipeline more and more now). Long story short, I've run into a few nasty bugs introduced while trying to improve my code. I've found debugging to be a real pain because the only way I can simulate the entire Content Pipeline experience is to let GSE/XNA do the building of some actual content. I can eventually solve my bugs, but my real questions are: 1. What is the best way to debug custom Content Pipeline importers/processers/writers I am already using the three-project setup (One assembly o ...Show All

• pingfr2005 Compiler support

  Will the XNA framework support the standard .NET framework APIs for compiling C# code into loadable assemblies at runtime I currently use those APIs to compile game scripts on the fly at startup to enable faster prototyping, but I can imagine reasons for these APIs not to be supported on the 360. Hi Kevin. I think you were reading my mind :) Because the Xbox 360 uses a special port of the .NET CF, the LCG method-generation functionality isn't available -- unfortunately IronPython won't work on the Xbox 360 today. We are planning on investigating this for future releases. aL On Windows you can continue to use any .NET class libraries available in the 2.0 framework. Please be aware if you stray f ...Show All

• Dr. Chris Where is the free artwork that was promised for XNA?

  In a lot of articles I've read they said the XNA would have a large database of free artwork (both 2D and 3D). Is this available somewhere Thanks, John From the XNA website about Content Creators Club: "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." Personally I haven't seen anything open up content wise in the realm of thousands of game assets (so far I've seen zero.) http://www.turbosquid.com/xna What are the license restriction ...Show All

• kcchesnut Managed vs Unmanaged, Primitive design and .NET

  I actually have three separate questions here. Please bear with me. Managed vs Unmanaged I searched several post and didn't find the answer I was looking for. Simply put, if you are designing a 3D game engine that needs to push 30+ frames a second, would you even consider using a managed language It seems to me that when the garbage collector kicks in your frame rate will/may plummet. What is the concensus on using managed vs unmanaged code in a game engine Primitive Design I have built a rudimentary 3D engine using good OOD where the primitives (points, polygons, lines, etc.) provide methods for their management and transformations. If I have a model with 100,000 points, each point carries the overhead of the virtual function table and ...Show All

• mathewk_03 My first game... Asteroid Defense.

  In this game you are a ship protecting a planet from incoming asteroids. Controls: 360 controller: Left Joystick -- Move ship left and right. A -- Shoot Right or Left Trigger -- Change Weapon. Keyboard Left and Right Arrow Keys -- Move ship left and right. Up and Down Arrow Keys -- Change Weapon Space -- Shoot The weapon you are using is shown in the top left corner. The stronger the weapon you use, the less points you get for destroying an asteroid. Levels progress at timed intervals and more and more asteroids come down. You lose when one of them reaches the planet. Screenshot: http://www.rocketsoft.gm-school.uni.cc/uploads/ADScreen.JPG Game File: http://www.rocketsoft.gm-school.uni.cc/uploads/AsteroidDefense1.1.rar All in ...Show All

• AKW2006 Keyboard/Mouse Input under XNA Framework

  From my reading, my understanding is that XNA Framework will use XINPUT. By design, XINPUT handles game controllers specifically and does not address keyboards, mice, or other HID devices. AFAIAA, current guidance given for DirectInput to XINPUT transition on the Windows platform is to handle keyboard and mouse input via traditional Windows messages or System.Windows.Forms events. However, we are now being advised that cross-platform application implementations built on XNA Framework will need to refrain from referencing the System.Windows.Forms namespace, and that ideally our application window will be managed by GraphicsComponent. Furthermore, on the 360, there would likely not be any Windows message stream from which to handle input fro ...Show All

• spot9969 Right handed media files

  So if the coordinate system is now right handed, does that mean x files and their exporters need to be updated to go right handed I somehow missed that the Content Pipeline will not be shipped with the beta. I was worried about getting spoiled by it, but now no worries.   So without the Pipeline will we just do it the same way we do in MDX untill it is added The XNA Framework Content Pipeline will make sure everythings "pointing the right direction" if you will. However as we've said the content pipeline woln't be shipping with the beta, you could probably do any kind of translation or flipping you needed to do in code, and we'll have the Spacewar! starter kit with som ...Show All

• Ledeni_Plamen 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 Yes, that is the way to do it. It is not necessarily inelegant (because you can hang other functionality on ...Show All

• Rassol Getting adapter format BEFORE device creation?

  I have a fairly simple problem. I'd like to see if the screen is wider than 1280 or not, before deciding on a 1280x720 backbuffer or a 1024x640 backbuffer. The latter will make the game (in windowed mode) work better on 1280x800 or 1280x1024 displays, which are pretty darn common these days. (Meanwhile, for Xbox, I'll just hard-code 1280x720) However, when I create the graphics device manager inside the constructor of my game, I can't seem to actually read the current display mode / adapter format in any way, because they are all NULL. So, to get this data, I have to create the device first. But to create the device, I have to first get the data. Catch 22! I'd prefer not to have to resort to P/Invoke -- is there a way to do this within pla ...Show All

• Ramanakumar XNA / Game Dev Training

  Is there a list of training courses I could take to learn using Visual Studio C# and XNA Express more specificly I have varied programming experience but limited C# and am totally new to gaming. I am very interested in any trainging that would jump start my abilities to use the new XNA Express tools and begin coding games. The product is new, so there are no formal courses right now. However, enter "tutorial" in the MSDN Game Dev search box (at the top) and you will get a large number of hits. ...Show All

• spshah Possible bug using dual monitors

  I get an: "AccessViolationException was unhandled: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt." when I drag the running game window over to the 2nd display. It appears to be related to rendering the meshes, as it doesn't throw the error until there is only one mesh left in the portion of the gaming window that's still on the original display. Greg It's that you're using a graphics device for one monitor/card/port to try to render to another one. I'm not sure how to fix it though as I haven't had to deal with it yet. The fact that things work until only a single mesh is left seems to suggest that it isn't related to XNA as such. It ...Show All

• Pablo A Castillo DirectX, XNA, Or XNA Game Studio?

  Dear, I Am A Beginer In Game Development, But Professional In C# And C++.Net 2005. I Want To Start Learning 3D Game Development Where I Have 2 Main Questions: 1- C++, C++.Net 2005, Or C# Is The Fastest And The Powerfull Language For Creating 3D Application 2- What Is The Graphic Library I Have To Learn And What Are The Difference Between XNA, DirectX, And XNA Game Studio I Hope To Help Me In My 1st Steps. Thx Alot Plz, I Want A Direct Replies. 1- Can We Say That XNA Is The Latest Graphics API After Managed DirectX And DirectX 2- Like We Know, The Powerfull Off All .net Languages (C++ and C#) Is The Same, Does You Mean That The Native C++ Is The Fastest If Yes, Took A Look To The CryEngine Which Is The Best 1 ...Show All

• bhavu Installation fails to register extensions

  No matter what system I try to install this on they all run vista and all attempts fail. It says it installs the Game Studio Express successfully, which it seems to do so. Then I open Game Studio Express and go to File->New Project, and the starter projects are not there. Any ideas/work arounds Thanks. I'm running Vista Ultimate on all computers attempted if that helps. thanks that worked Check out this link: http://nuclex.org/articles/xna-game-studio-express-1-0-on-vista By the way, Vista is not an officially supported platform for XNA. The only officially supported platform is Windows XP SP2. ...Show All

• MMS2006 Xbox 360 Storage location/access

  I know about (and understand) StorageDevice, etc. But, is it possible to read and/or write to/from external USB devices Hmm so does that mean you can't even read external drives from XNA games I know about the games save stuff and thats not my goal with this. I'm fairly certain the answer to that is no :-) Here are some links for You :) Post on Xbox.com about external HDD and Xbox360 http://forums.xbox.com/9317453/ShowPost.aspx And the SanDisk Cruser Crossfire USB Stick for Xbox and PC http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/xbox-360/61/SanDisk-Cruzer-Crossfire-USB-Flash-Drive/p1/ Correct, you cannot read external drives from XNA games. ...Show All