Digital Wanderer

The weekend was productive, but I'm dog-tired.
I don't know if anyone will care, but I can write about Microsoft XNA Framework.

XNA Framework is a new game development platform from Microsoft, based on managed code and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. It makes it super easy to create games for the XBox-360 game console and Windows. For now, the second beta of the Game Developer Studio Express Edition environment is available for enthusiasts and small developers, and it comes with the beta of the Framework itself.

XNA is meant to replace the existing Managed Direct X (which will no longer be developed) and eventually become the main platform for developers of moderately demanding games. XNA might also do the job for technologically advanced games, but the performance question isn't entirely clear yet.

So anyway, on Saturday I ported my long-suffering game to XNA. What changed in XNA compared to Managed DirectX?

The classic right-handed coordinate system from math and physics textbooks instead of the computer left-handed one. This is great for beginners and for general understanding, but bad for existing computer 3D textbooks and existing MDX projects that need porting to XNA.

Next up: creating a new game got even easier since XNA has a ready-to-use Game class built in. You just inherit from it, and you immediately get a ton of useful functionality.

Naturally, making games cross-platform is a breeze now, but Game Developer Studio Express can't be used for commercial games for X-Box 360. For that, you'll have to buy the Professional version, which comes out in the summer.

On the downside - XNA currently has no GUI and no text rendering capabilities.

And lastly - XNA is now a tiny 2 MB library instead of the idiotic Managed Direct X approach, where you had to install a special version of DirectX that included the Managed part. This makes me very happy.

Truth be told, it's extremely frustrating that running my tiny 2D game will require:
1)Installed .NET Framework 2.0
2)Installed DirectX of the latest version (specifically the latest one)
3)Installed XNA Framework
4)Over two hundred! megabytes of RAM. A nightmare, I know. I hope this still changes.
5)A video card with Shaders 2.0 support (this still needs to be tested, it might not be required)