With the release of Visual Studio 2008, the C# language has been updated to make use of .NET 3.5.
If you follow this link, you will see what was added to .NET 3.5 which is what XNA is based upon and follow this link for what... read more
With the release of Visual Studio 2008, the C# language has been updated to make use of .NET 3.5.
If you follow this link, you will see what was added to .NET 3.5 which is what XNA is based upon and follow this link for what is new in C# for 2008.
The main highlights for gaming are:
1.1.1 Collections
Collections have been improved with more Hashing support.
1.1.2 Diagnostics
Mainly used by Windows app, the diagnostic namespace has been improved to provide more diagnostic information to aid developers.
1.1.3 Garbage collection
The .NET garbage collector provides a high-speed allocation service with good use of memory and no long-term fragmentation problems.
Garbage collection was improved to give a developer more control over when garbage is collected.
Shawn (XNA God) Hargreaves wrote an excellent article on how to maintain garbage in code.
1.1.4 Threading – also see the threadpool enhancements
Microsoft’s Peer-to-Peer collaboration infrastructure provides a peer-to-peer network-based framework for collaborative serverless activities. Use of this framework enables decentralized networking applications that use the collective power of computers over a subnet or the Internet.
The Socket class has been enhanced for use by applications that use asynchronous network I/O to achieve the highest performance. A series of new classes have been added as part of a set of enhancements to the Socket namespace. These classes provide an alternative asynchronous pattern that can be used by specialized high-performance socket applications.
Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) is a new feature in Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. LINQ extends powerful query capabilities to the language syntax of C# and Visual Basic in the form of standard, easily-learned query patterns. This technology can be extended to support potentially any kind of data store.
Enables initialization of collections or objects with an initialization list rather than specific calls to Add or another method, without the need for explicit constructor calls.
Extend existing classes by using static methods that can be invoked by using instance method syntax. Extensions are very useful for implementing your own methods on top of existing classes
Nick Gravelyn and the guys at http://www.xnawiki.com/ have many details on how to use Extensions in XNA, there is even a whole codeplex project dedicated to them
Enables inline expressions with input parameters that can be bound to delegates or expression trees.
Enables declaration of properties by using simplified syntax
Partial types may now contain partial methods.
Refactoring is the process of improving your code after it has been written by changing the internal structure of the code without changing the external behaviour of the code.
*Note will follow up with a section on .NET 4.0 and .NET 4.5 / WinRT at some later date
With the release of Visual Studio 2010, the C# language has been updated to make use of .NET 4.0.
If you follow this link, you will see what was added to .NET 4.0 and follow this link for what is new in C# for 2010. At this point it is unclear how much of the .NET 4.0 library will be available on the XBOX and Windows Phone 7. More on the subject when it is available.
The main highlights are:
Earlier versions of the .NET Framework provided no way to determine whether a particular application domain was affecting other application domains, because the operating system APIs and tools, such as the Windows Task Manager, were precise only to the process level. Starting with the .NET Framework 4, you can get processor usage and memory usage estimates per application domain.
The .NET Framework 4 provides background garbage collection. This feature replaces concurrent garbage collection in previous versions and provides better performance.
Several generic interfaces and delegates now support covariance and contravariance.
Covariant and contravariant generic type parameters provide greater flexibility in assigning and using generic types. For example, covariant type parameters enable you to make assignments that look much like ordinary polymorphism. Suppose you have a base class and a derived class, named Base and Derived. Polymorphism enables you to assign an instance of Derived to a variable of type Base. Similarly, because the type parameter of the IEnumerable<T> interface is covariant, you can assign an instance of IEnumerable<Derived> (IEnumerable(Of Derived) in Visual Basic) to a variable of type IEnumerable<Base>
Larger data types for those situations where you just do not have enough
In mathematics and computer science a tuple represents the notion of an ordered list of elements. Tuples are often used to describe other mathematical objects and factor a lot in algebra and calculus.
This is one to read up on, mainly minor updates or new methods for existing data types and functions.
One to look at is the Yield function –***
Visual C# 2010 provides support for late binding to dynamic types by introducing a new type,
The Generate From Usage feature enables you to use classes and members before you define them. Without leaving your current location in code, you can generate a stub for a class, constructor, method, property, field, or enum that you want to use but have not yet defined. This minimizes interruption to your workflow.
This is Microsoft’s answer to the latest practice of TDD or Test Driven development where you program according to features and not how you implement them. (feature first, implementation later)
IntelliSense now provides two alternatives for IntelliSense statement completion: completion mode and suggestion mode. Suggestion mode is used when classes and members are used before they are defined.
The Live Semantic Errors feature has been enhanced in Visual C# 2010. The use of wavy underlines to signal errors and warnings as you type has been extended to include constructs that are outside of method bodies, such as return types, parameter types, and default values in method declarations.
XNA implements it is own library for the Direct 3D library, unless you are writing a windows project we do not even reference the Direct 3D libraries directly, XNA does that all for us.
The following Direct 3D classes, are all implemented in the XNA framework and continue to be improved.
3.1. The “RenderStateManager” Class (now governed by the XNA GraphicsDevice Class)
Renderstates are all handled by the GraphicsDevice class, this provides an abstraction layer to all the code needed to talk directly to the graphics card, including preparing it for data, changing renderstates, sending over vertices / indices, passing shader code and so on.
It is one of the very fundamental offerings of XNA that the bulk of the hard work is already done for us.
3.2. The “Texture” Class (separate classes for XNA)
XNA implements several Texture classes for manipulates a texture resource. These are Texture2D and Texture3D
3.3. The “PresentParameters” Class (no longer required)
The XNA framework handles any work presenting or sending data to the graphics card, so this is not used in XNA
3.4. The “Device” Class (Now graphicsdevice class)
The GraphicsDevice class performs primitive-based rendering, creates resources, handles system-level variables,
Adjusts gamma ramp levels, gets and sets palettes, and creates shaders.
3.5. The “Sprite” Class
The Sprite class provides methods and properties that simplify the process of drawing sprites using
Direct3D.
3.6. The “Font” Class
The Font class encapsulates the textures and resources needed to render a specific font on a specific device.
Using XNA, we do not have access to Directinput, especially if you want cross platform support with XBOX360 or Windows Phone 7.
Instead XNA implements several STATE classes for each supported device, such as:
We will cover more on this during the tutorial.
Using XNA, we do not have access to Direct sound, especially if you want cross platform support with XBOX360 or Windows Phone 7.
The XNA has two main methods for handling audio, these being namely:
Direct access is simple enough and similar to Direct Sounds implementations of playing a file. The XACT integration is something else though, it is effectively a Sound studio for creating sound projects for XNA which XNA can then read and process though code. XACT provides a lot of out of the box and easy to implement features such as:
We wo not be going into detail in this tutorial about XACT (trying to keep things simple for now) as the interface is quite involved and does take some time to learn.
Video playback has been an issue for sometime in the XNA framework as there was no native support until recently (and by recently I mean XNA 4.0 which is not even released yet)
To play video previously we had to rely on custom written components to break down a video into the pictures for each frame and then play them in sequence manually. This put a lot of drain on the XNA framework and limited the size of videos that could be deployed.
Now in XNA 4.0 however there is a dedicated media library extension for handling video and stored media (pictures on a phone)
This is outside the scope of this tutorial but will try to get back to cover it later.
This is the same in XNA as in Direct3D, but it does go further and we also have Vector3, Vector4 classes. There also a ton of helper methods on top of each class to manage and use them, we will cover some of these in this tutorial.
Matrix’s are fully supported in XNA as they were in Direct3D with the addition of more helper methods. These will be covered in a future 3D tutorial. We can use Matrix’s in 2D for additional effect but they are not mandatory.
I have been referring to XNA in passing so far in this tutorial, you should already know what XNA is and what it offers (what do you mean you have not already read the XNA help ;-)).
In short XNA is a game framework which is multi-platform (PC, XBOX360, Zune and Phone 7) and provides a much simpler framework for specifically developing games, this makes it easier for indie developers and newcomers to game development to build and deploy games.
Big Studio’s on average still write games using C++ and the native DirectX library (and even bypass it in some situations) as it is felt that C# is to slow for big game productions. XNA may one day prove them wrong (after seeing some of the fantastic games written already using XNA) but I doubt it.
SO direct from the MSDN page for XNA, this is a list of what XNA offers.
The Content pipeline is a huge leap forward for multi-platform development as it gives you a singular method for accessing and delivering content for your game, such as images, models, fonts, videos and so on. So no matter what platform you write for in XNA you are code is always the same and you can even share content easily between platforms (provided they can cope with it). Some still think they can do it better but they will all come round eventually!! (Thanks Shawn)
Describes using XNA graphics for rendering 2D and 3D graphics. What more can you say, it handles graphics.
Identifies different methods and devices—keyboard, mouse, and Xbox 360 Controller—for retrieving user input.
Provides overviews about audio technology and presents predefined scenarios to demonstrate how to use audio.
Describes how the XNA Framework Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media namespace provides classes and methods for retrieving system media, including pictures and songs.
Provides classes that allow reading and writing of files. Also of note this can integrate with the content pipeline. There is a fine line for what you write yourself and what you store in the content manager. Basically things like settings files and high score files should be stored manually using the storage classes (be aware of issues with un-pluggable memory cards!!!) whereas if what you want to read is static then you should use the content manager.
Main difference is that the content manager is read only, if you want to write or update, then do it yourself.
Contains introductory articles describing how to use gamer services: working with player profiles and preferences, the Xbox Guide user interface, Guide-based messaging, and other features provided by Xbox LIVE.
Contains introductory articles describing how to create and join multiplayer game sessions, manage game state across clients, and interact with the friends list.
Provides information about programming for specific hardware types and platforms using the XNA Framework.
There are also a whole load of extended tutorials available on the Creators Club website as well as on MSDN, so your learning should not stop here.
So now you are up to date with the basics of Game frameworks and the basics of how to program. Next week we start with the make up of a game and then on to building that first ominous project.
See you on the flip side.
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