Answer Questions

• Ubon94 Using Bitmapfont for your scoring system

  Hey all, I just want to start out saying that I love what microsoft is doing with xna, in the few days that ive had my hands on it ive witnessed several impressive projects pop up! Anyways, on to the point of this post. I searched the forum for a post that explained a simple way to make a scoring system (using the tutorial here: http://blogs.msdn.com/garykac/articles/732007.aspx ) and it came up empty, so I figured I would help people with similar C# skills as my own are somewhat basic. After the tutorial they have you write the text to the screen using: m_font.DrawString(20, 20, Color.DarkBlue, "Sample string"); However, thats a pretty static way to write text to a screen, perfect for some things, but useless for a scoring ...Show All

• Jon_H DrawIndexedPrimitives problem

  Hi, I've got some polygons being drawn with the simple shader using DrawUserIndexedPrimitives(... This works fine on my main laptop with a GForce 7800 card, however I run into problems when I try and run on the same exe on my Samsung Q1 (Intel 915G card, dx9 compat with latest drivers and dx 9.0c). The problem is that it only draws polygons that are intersecting either the front or back clipping planes. DrawUserPrimitives however work fine. So I'm at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong. I've tried setting wire frame / alpha blend / scissor rectangles but still the same. Any ideas Cheers, Steve. This could be a bug in our product. We don't have a Q1 to test against, but I a ...Show All

• v0max 2D Sprite?

  Ok i know I have found this topic some where in this forum but now I can't find it. What do I use to create a 2D Sprite in C++ with D3D9 You can use ID3DXSprite to draw sprites in C++ with Direct3D. Yes, ID3DXSprite is good... and look at this nice goody by AGPX ... Initialize with: ID3DXSprite *spriteDrawer = NULL; D3DXCreateSprite(pd3dDevice, &spriteDrawer); Load your sprite with: IDirect3DTexture9 *sprite = NULL; D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(pd3dDevice, L"c:\\MyWellSprite.png", D3DX_DEFAULT_NONPOW2, D3DX_DEFAULT_NONPOW2, 1, 0, D3DFMT_UNKNOWN, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, ...Show All

• Pravindabade Coding DirectX with C++

  Hi, I recently started coding with C++, mainly to get into game programming, but I have a few questions about DirectX (I haven't downloaded the SDK). 1. I'm using Visual C++ Express, which I downloaded off the microsoft website. Is C++, and this compiler, good for coding games in DirectX 2. I assume I need the DirectX SDK to code DirectX, but it was a bit of a turn off when I saw it's size - a whopping 500mb! Is there a 'slimmed down' version for those only wanting to code in C++. Alternatively, is the DirectX SDK actually what I need I'm a little lost here. 3. If I was to code a game and sell it commercially, would I need a license (or something similar) to use DirectX David Weller - MSFT wrote: ...Show All

• Kartit problems creating a triangle strip for a terrain section

  Hi I am having a few problems creating an index buffer for a triangle strip for a terrain section. I have a section similar to the following. 0 - 1 - 2 | / | / | 3 - 4 - 5 | / | / | 6 - 7 - 8 I define my triangle strip using the following indices also with one degenerate triangle, I have bolded it so it stands out better. 0, 3, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 3 , 3, 6, 4, 7, 5, 8 My first question is, is this degenerate correct it seems to be correct, but my next problem is what confuses matters as it really affects wether my terrain tile renders correctly without gaps. When it comes round to making my DrawIndexedPrimitives call, I have to specify the number of vertices, and the total number of primitives. I would have thought t ...Show All

• Boy from Turkey Graphic Card Questions

  I am wanting to start messing around with the XNA Game Studio Express to try and learn how to make Xbox 360 games. I am getting a Dell from my sister that is a couple of years old to use for this. It has an Intel 82865G graphics chip so I figure I will need to get a video card for it but I really don't keep very up-to-date when it comes to PC hardware. The system is a Dell Dimension 3000 P4 2.8GHz which doesn't have PCIe or AGP so I will need a plain-jane PCI graphics card. I don't plan to join the Creators Club until I have something worth deploying to the Xbox 360 so the PC will be the main thing I will be running any games on for the time being. I know it would be better to get a system with PCIe (or even AGP) but I basically want to i ...Show All

• Shaantu 3D picking with the mouse combined with a moving camera...

  Hi all, I'll get right to the point. My camera is defined using the following code... cameraworld = Matrix .CreateTranslation(xplane, yplane, 0) * Matrix .CreateScale(zoom) * Matrix .CreateRotationZ(angle); view = cameraworld * Matrix .CreateLookAt( new Vector3 (0, 0, 100), Vector3 .Zero, Vector3 .Up); projection = Matrix .CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper .ToRadians(45), ( float )graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / ( float )graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height,1.0f, 1000f); effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; I've also got code to allow me to place objects in the game world, after unprojecting the mouse points and finding the point of intersection with my XY plane. Only probl ...Show All

• SRCarmy ContentLoadException

  Hello, loving XNA so far. But when I try to use this: Model model; ContentManager contentManager = new ContentManager(GameServices); model = contentManager.Load<Model>("boing.swm"); Code I get the ContentLoadException which states it cannot find the file speficied in the file, which is located in the project. So I am trying to figure out what is causing this exception. Any help would be much appreciated. The ContentManager is in the beta because it exists inside the framework, however there is nothing currently available to output to the Model format, This is what the XNA Framework Content Pipeline does. All the things floating around the .swm format are custom solutions ...Show All

• Robert Mileski general use of XNA vertex types?

  I am trying to create some methods to manipulate various parts of the XNA vertex structs. I want to be able to pass all the different vertex types as arguments to these methods. Because they are structs they don't derive from a base class other than ValueType. If I use ValueType as the parameter I don't have access to the propertys of the vertex. Is this a case where refelection would be usefull Can anyone help me find a way to write a method that can access the position property of any type of vertex. I hope I have been clear enough. Thanks. You could do this using reflection. That is very slow compared to regular code, but also incredibly powerful. Whether it will be too slow or not really depends on ...Show All

• raghu_grdr How do I load a 3d mesh (.x file)?

  How do I load a .x mesh into my scene The space game seems to use its own format (which it names .swm), and there's nothing in the help. I've been scanning through through the classes in the Framework namespace, but I can't see anything obvious! Is .x the recommended format for objects like this (If not, I change my question to be about the recommended format :D) If anyone knows anywhere that has some nice .x meshes I can play with, that'd be cool too. The only one I have lying around is a chair, and that's going to look a bit funny running around my game :D I didn't think the content pipeline stuff was in the beta I just added this code, which compiles: ContentManager contentManager = new ...Show All

• Debugger Zero Graph shader?

  I am trying to draw the FPS in a graph. For that I want to pass the shader effect a 1D texture, but it isnt very simple. I understand I need to use a sampler Does the steps of passing and using a 1D texture (or sampler) similar to those of passing and using a 2D texture Or do I need to do it differently For a 2D texture I have the SetTexture method for an effect, but I dont have the equivalent for a sampler or some sort of a 1D Texture which I dont know about. How do I achieve this Thank you. So I didnt understand what I should do. How do I create a 1D texture in DX Do I need to create a D3DTexture 2D texture and treat it as if it was a 1D texture But then I have to allocate a ...Show All

• user__2006 Where is the download?

  It is 12:48 pm here (GMT + 1)... in Nuku'alofa (GMT + 13) it is tomorrow... So where the hell is my download link :-D I imagine when they said the 30th, they probably meant some time during business hours... Hmmm... the holy grail is here on my desk. Btw... it's "tomorrow" now... Then move there and check the Internet. IIRC, Beta 1 of Game Studio Express is coming out tomorrow (Aug 30th)...you're about 19-ish hours too early ;) Probably the same place you left the Holy Grail! In Nuku'alofa (GMT + 13) it should be Aug 30th now... Patience is a virtue EvilOneSD wrote: Hmmm... the holy grail is here on my desk ...Show All

• devdept Making XNA/Managed code secure

  What is being done to make managed code more secure for commercial applications. I can't see how any companies would be willing to switch to managed code for prime time games as long as MSIL can be easily reverse engineered. I love XNA and Managed code and pray that eventually commercial industry will as well (so I can put my C# skills towards gaming instead of business apps). Our company is already hesitant to make WinForm applications due to the ease in which these applications can be decompiled and reversed. For Windows development, you could always put your IP-critical code in a Win32 DLL (which can still be disassembed but is less readable). Most of what goes into an app isn't worth protecting like that anyway. There are obscuf ...Show All

• Terrence Chan XNA without game studio

  Hello, I have visual studio 2005 installed and I was wondering if I can use XNA alone with Visual Studio 2005 without installing c# express. If I can, how do I do it. thanks. well I downloaded the XNA framework from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx FamilyID=2e136a1f-f187-478c-9da5-aaeb0904782b&DisplayLang=en and installed it but I don't see it when I try to add a reference. That's the runtime. You need to install C# Express, install GSE, then uninstall C# Express if you don't want to use it. Then try to add the XNA DLLs as a reference. ahh, ok thanks. Just reference the XNA assemblies and use it like any ...Show All

• siavoshkc 4.5s of overhead when pixel shaders are set

  I'm getting a 4.5 seconds long freeze when a series of pixel shaders are used for the first time. When all of the 500 effects of my test case select a different PS, the application freezes 4.5 seconds and then continues. The overhead appears when DrawIndexedPrimitive or SetPixelShaderConstantF are called. - I'm not using the multithread flag - I'm not getting any errors or warning msg - no help from PIX - Shaders are compiled when the data is packaged at export time, no compilation at run-time. - The PS & VS are created at load time, not when needed So I tried a simpler test case: All PS are returning a random value -> the app freezes for ~1.5 seconds and the overhead occurs in DrawIndexedPrimitive. float4 Main( ) : COLOR0 { floa ...Show All