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XNA Game Studio Express Beta Now Available
d.3.l.t.r.3.3 writes "The long awaited XNA Game Studio Express public Beta is finally here. Despite some high claims by Microsoft, the Game Studio remains a code-only experience, with a more coherent and less fragmented feature set than the old DirectX 9 SDK. As I describe in this review, XNA has successfully streamlined many dull tasks of game development (helped a bit by the new game-supportive features of Windows Vista). It's also, unfortunately, kept too many frustrating pieces and bugs (especially when it comes to cross platform input handling and audio) to be successfully considered a real multi-platform game developing tool."
I have to say I think this is a really good idea for Developers. To help reduce cost, it's only a question of how cross-platform it really will be.
Cross platform as in PC/XBox 360 or cross platform as in PC/Mac/Linux.
I think you can pretty much count out the latter. Unless there is a cross platform DirectX that no one knows about.
This is a copy of a post I made on evil avatar. I figure people here might actually care. :)
.x files you've created and exported with an exporter provided with XNA (or using .fbx, which they plan to support). As it stands, the models are all in an undocumented bespoke format, for which there are no tools, so you'd have to follow the loading code and write your own converter, or write a bunch of code to support another format.
.x stuff to get some content in your game. Anyway, I look forward to checking out the next release, especially the content pipeline, which sounds very cool from what I've read about it.
I found it a little bit disappointing so far (I know it's a beta).
The biggest problem is that there is no content pipeline. Apparently this was due to be included, but got delayed until the next version. This would be less of a problem if they still had support for D3DX meshes, but they've removed all that stuff without replacing it. Since the content tools are coming soon (hopefully) I'm really not inclined to build my own temporary pipeline, and I seriously doubt people who are new to game programming want to mess about making pipeline tools when the whole point of this thing is to let them focus on making games.
You should be able to fire up the spacewar example and easily replace the ships with some
The documentation references DxTex and XACT, tools you need for all but simple textures, and for any kind of audio respectively, but they aren't included (as far as I can tell), so to get them, you need to get the full DirectX SDK as well. I can see DxTex being replaced by the content pipeline, but why isn't XACT included? Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I saw this thing as being an alternative to the full SDK, not complementary to it.
They call it 'XNA Game Studio', so I was expecting some IDE integration, with GPU debugging, or PIX integration, or anything DirectX related. Unfortunately it just seems to have added some new project wizards, and that's it.
The framework is pretty much the same as previous versions of Managed DirectX, with a whole lot of stuff ripped out, some new helper classes, and the rest cleaned up nicely.
I'm still excited about the XNA Framework and XNA GSE, and I can't fault the direction they are taking with this stuff. My main problem is that there's barely anything here that you can't do just as well with the old version of managed DirectX and the same copy of VC#, and with that you can at least use the
Too many people are complaining that XNA is not easy enough, not visual enough. I just tried it and compared to the C++ implementation and even Managed DirectX in C# and all I have to say is that it is much cleaner and simpler to make anything.
Non-programmers are currently trying it expecting something that would work like a drag and drop interface. They have been the loudest to complain because they cannot be bothered to learn to code a little C#.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/this baby's just for windows. i would assume though, that eventually, they can port to the xbox360 with little fuss.
of course, being MS, they can create a whole lot of fuss about something so simple.
i was shocked reading TFA:
The shortcoming is evident if you run the sample included, a modern version of Spacewar. The game defaults on the joypad and you have to #define (yes, #define) a flag (USE_KEYBOARD) to allow the use of a Keyboard instead of a Joypad, crippling the "portability" of the game code. There's no way to transparently handle keyboard, mouse and joypad actions together unless you code it by hand. Frankly, in an era where even the lowliest mobile SDK has the functionality to completely abstract from the input device when writing game code, it is a bit discouraging don't see it in XNA.
a little bit too much of a mixed bag really. on one hand, it's great that a simple programmer (like me) can actually get to develop my own games for windows with as little fuss as possible *at least that's what i hope*. while on the other hand, if the TFA was to be believed, i guess i still have to wait. but kudos to MS for at least trying.
. o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
PC/XBox360. But still, that's a big thing.
... but you will still have inconsistencies between each platform. Unfortunately.
If you want to do cross platform computers do OpenGL/(some windowing toolkit)
I'm a little annoyed this simply just RIPPED out the 3-D mesh stuff for this Beta but so far...
:-)
SWEET! I wrote a simple bounce-ball w/ paddle in a couple hours. Most of that was learning how to use the API. In terms of coding time, I'd say it took me less than an hour. The API docs included is almost useless, but I can only hope MS gets a basic idea: enable amatuer developers. This is how MS built up its developer base in the first place with GW-Basic and QuickBasic. Think how many developers got started writing for MS platforms with that. And VB, which had to have been the most pirated language since TurboPascal, enabled Windows to become entrenched everywhere.
Good call. Now we need to do something like this for SDL for some good competition.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
C'mon... Microsoft has completely NO desire to allow you to easily make things cross-platform
for their consoles and whatnot.
They want you as locked in as they can get you- if you want cross-platform (Considering the
overall interest in the game dev space MS has, you'd do well to consider this- everywhere
else they've had an "interest" in, they've either muscled the company out (Netscape, Stac...)
or pressured it almost out of existence (Borland, Intuit...). Do you HONESTLY think they're
NOT going to do the same thing to the Game space??) you have to do it yourself. In reality,
it's not as difficult as it'd seem. If you've done your game design right, you've abstracted
out most of the things like the input layer into something that actually handles a the interface
of things like input for the game. The bulk of the code for the game SHOULD be the game itself
not input, sound, or graphics. At that point, all you need is a translation layer inside of
another interface module for the appropriate piece and you're good to go.
Yes, it's more complicated that I'm making it out to sound, but it's NOT as difficult as
people keep making it out to be. Yes, it consumes 10-15% "more time" doing it this way.
But what people keep missing is that if you've designed it "this way" it typically gives
you back the time you spent on it in the form of less effort that comes from good up-front
design instead of relying on MS' API's, the C++ compiler, or cowboy coding to make the
work "easier".
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think that there will only be 20 to 30 useful games produced over the lifetime of the Xbox 360 with this.
There will be a lot of people who think that they can develop games, but have never programmed. The XNA forums will be cluttered with half finished poorly written code.
There will be people who are dedicated and bright, who will end up producing some interesting stuff. But they will be grossly outnumbered by idiots.
Oh, Thank you, Oh master of game development! :)
No, seriously, thank you. Very good points. This is the way things should be coded. This can still be done with XNA.
Coding is not the only thing though. I think the bigger help from XNA will come later on in the toolset lifetime, just as it has in other MS tools and products. MS also has a good track record for starting out behind the pack and moving out in front. This just might be the beginning of their move to overtake the leaders.
Granted, it could be better now, but so could everything.
Personally, I look forward to tools that make my life/job easier. Sometimes I use them and sometimes I don't. Whichever is most convenient for the current project I'm working on. It's interesting though... when I don't use the tools provided, it's because I've created my own similar tool with just a tweak here and there with my desired functionality added. This is usually good enough for single person development, because there are bugs in any tool that is developed so quickly. Multi person teams need robust tools that take time, or money, or a big company or OSS organization to release quality software/code for re-use.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.
The idea behind XNA is excellent even if the start is a little rocky - here's hoping all of the next gen platforms open up development in similar ways.
All of them can benefit greatly from it too by allowing some games to be sold through the online portals that each console is providing... What will be really interesting is to see if any revenue goes back to the creator. If so, it could spawn a great wave of people that are focuses on making small but innovative games to help offset the path of games today becoming larger and larger.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Think how many developers got started writing for MS platforms with that. And VB, which had to have been the most pirated language since TurboPascal, enabled Windows to become entrenched everywhere."
Yes, and think of how much derision they got too. Now it's the 'game developers' turn to be sneered at.
There is, its called Wine and works suprisingly well.
Hey, come on, they've given you THREE platforms buddy! Xbox, XP, Vista. Don't get greedy! But seriously, I played around with the samples and whatnot, and it seems pretty interesting. I'll be interested in the final version and to see what comes out, along with the professional version (which will supposedly be supported along side VC++ as a standard Xenon development platform.) What I'm wondering is whether or not MS supports a Mono build of this stuff. You have to wonder what's more valuable in the long run - short term OS lock in, or becoming THE de facto development platform for games? Owning the OS is what allows them to do this, but ask anyone who's developed xbox/360 vs. ps2/ps3 and for the most part MS makes a better development platform.
There's no such thing as "a little code" even for us actual coders, much less in any gaming project, much less anything XNA-related.
A non-programmer shouldn't touch this stuff with a 12 meter (that's 39 and a half feet for us non-British people) pole.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I looked around for the source code to download and compile; I couldn't find it. My Computer Science Advisor says, "Using someone else's code without checking it first is not like cool running." But I thought, "What the heck, it's microsoft; They've never been convicted of lying, cheating, or stealing other peoples stuff." So I downloaded it anyway, and tried to unpack it. I couldn't find anything that could unpack it. Funny thing, there was no MD5 value on microsoft's web site; That's kinda weird to me. I figure that it's broke. Maybe if they opened a forum, and let us see the code, maybe someone could figure why it doesn't work in Linux.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
This is the biggest issue with XNA that I can see so far. You MUST use C# to write code for it - pretty much eliminating years of experience writing games with C++
So every developer has to rewrite whatever engine they were working on for other platforms to work on the MS platforms.
You can write managed code in C++ without problems, this decision can ONLY be designed to try and force indies to support their platform only. Typical MS decision
Gekido's Lair
"The long awaited XNA Game Studio Express public Beta is finally here."
So now I guess the question is, "Long awaited by whom?"
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.