XNA vs MDX
Author
Hi... I've been away from games programming for a while now, but recently I've been dying to get started on another project. I have previously written a couple of 2D games with DirectX 8 and C++, and then I moved onto a 3D game for a while. But now I have decided to write another 2D game. Why? To be honest, I'm not doing it for a portfolio or anything any more, just for fun.
Since my last project I have been working more and more with C# and .NET in my job, and as such this is the language/environment I would like to use to write my new game. So as I see it, I have basically 2 options:
1. MDX
I have started messing around with this already and things are going ok. However the documentation is pretty sparse and I have been reading mixed reports on how well it is going to be supported in future. I'm not so concerned about this as the project is just for fun, but at the same time I don't want to write something that won't work on a future release of DirectX.
2. XNA
I'm not bothered about writing for the 360, but this sounds like it might be more supported in future, and I'm hoping that since this is the 'new thing' there will be more documentation/tutorials.
As always I've been rambling. My point is, given that I am starting this project fresh, what would be the best option? My main requirments are:
> Good support for sprites
> Decent enough performance
Erm, I think that's it. Fairly basic really. So I just wondered if anyone here had any recommendations....
XNA is probably your best choice.
MDX is not longer being developed or maintained, so if you find problems with it you are on your own.
XNA is growing, it is a good platform to make small games, and performance is ok, dependeing on what you are doing.
Docs for XNA are much better than MDX, and the XNA community is growing very fast, making tutorials and samples widely available.
MDX is not longer being developed or maintained, so if you find problems with it you are on your own.
XNA is growing, it is a good platform to make small games, and performance is ok, dependeing on what you are doing.
Docs for XNA are much better than MDX, and the XNA community is growing very fast, making tutorials and samples widely available.
XNA is really just MDX 2.0 that was never released so it doesn't matter which one you use as long as you don't use MDX 2.0 beta which was never released and it timebombed now.
This link should give you another opinion on what you should use.
p.s. I was going to say if you are running Vista your only choice is to use MDX since XNA isn't supported under Vista but it looks like they just released an update today and you can now use Vista for development?
This link should give you another opinion on what you should use.
p.s. I was going to say if you are running Vista your only choice is to use MDX since XNA isn't supported under Vista but it looks like they just released an update today and you can now use Vista for development?
Saying that XNA is just MDX 2.0 is an understatement.
At this point there are more differences than similarities, MDX was a thin wrapper around DirectX, XNA is a multi-platform library (WIN32 and Xbox), with an extensive object model, and a rich content pipeline. If you are writing a small to mid-size game XNA is your best bet (unless you have some VERY special requirements), MDX is no longer being worked on, there is a small user community for it, and lacks good documentation and samples, XNA does not suffer from that.
At this point there are more differences than similarities, MDX was a thin wrapper around DirectX, XNA is a multi-platform library (WIN32 and Xbox), with an extensive object model, and a rich content pipeline. If you are writing a small to mid-size game XNA is your best bet (unless you have some VERY special requirements), MDX is no longer being worked on, there is a small user community for it, and lacks good documentation and samples, XNA does not suffer from that.
>>XNA is really just MDX 2.0 that was never released
>Saying that XNA is just MDX 2.0 is an understatement.
Worse than an understatement, its just plain wrong. Its a totally different code base. The only commonality is that Tom Miller worked on both so he may have used a bit of code from MDX 2.0 as he developed it.
Either way, my advice is to ignore MDX in favour of XNA unless there are some parts of MDX you have to use that are not in XNA yet (there's a few but they are mostly edge cases for general development)
>Saying that XNA is just MDX 2.0 is an understatement.
Worse than an understatement, its just plain wrong. Its a totally different code base. The only commonality is that Tom Miller worked on both so he may have used a bit of code from MDX 2.0 as he developed it.
Either way, my advice is to ignore MDX in favour of XNA unless there are some parts of MDX you have to use that are not in XNA yet (there's a few but they are mostly edge cases for general development)
Quote:Original post by ldeej
Saying that XNA is just MDX 2.0 is an understatement.
At this point there are more differences than similarities, MDX was a thin wrapper around DirectX, XNA is a multi-platform library (WIN32 and Xbox), with an extensive object model, and a rich content pipeline. If you are writing a small to mid-size game XNA is your best bet (unless you have some VERY special requirements), MDX is no longer being worked on, there is a small user community for it, and lacks good documentation and samples, XNA does not suffer from that.
Being a book person myself(have 5 or more books covering MDX) I may be wrong since there are 0 books currently out there covering XNA. Last time I checked the official XNA site they said they were going to put out a migration guide for people that have already invested time/code on MDX but it's still beta last time I checked it so I'd tread carefully whichever you choose since that's one of the dangers of working with cutting edge tech.
Quote:Original post by daviangelA quick nitpick [grin]
Being a book person myself(have 5 or more books covering MDX) I may be wrong since there are 0 books currently out there covering XNA. Last time I checked the official XNA site they said they were going to put out a migration guide for people that have already invested time/code on MDX but it's still beta last time I checked it so I'd tread carefully whichever you choose since that's one of the dangers of working with cutting edge tech.
I am not sure if you were referring to the migration guide as being beta, or the XNA Framework being beta, so I'll just stress that the XNA Framework is NOT beta. It is a final, end-release, fully supported product, and unlike MDX 1.1, is still being actively developed [smile]
As for the original topic, ZMan knows best [grin]
Regards,
ViLiO
I think he meant the migration guide is stil in beta see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb197956.aspx. That article was written when XNA GSE was in beta and still applies to the released version.
You are correct about the lack of books but thats due to how new it is and hoe quickly version 1 appeared. However there are 4 in progress with the first less than 2 weeks away from publication.
XNA books on amazon
You are correct about the lack of books but thats due to how new it is and hoe quickly version 1 appeared. However there are 4 in progress with the first less than 2 weeks away from publication.
XNA books on amazon
Author
Thanks for all the posts guys. This forum is still the best place for Game Development information!
I have been looking into XNA for a couple of days now, and I have pretty much rewritten my small MDX game engine with it already. It's early days, but so far I have to say I am very impressed with how easy it has been to get it all set up and running.
With XNA my code is nice and simple and clean, and it does everything I want it to do (so far!) And I have found some really good tutorials online... what more could I ask for?
Thanks again for all your help!
I have been looking into XNA for a couple of days now, and I have pretty much rewritten my small MDX game engine with it already. It's early days, but so far I have to say I am very impressed with how easy it has been to get it all set up and running.
With XNA my code is nice and simple and clean, and it does everything I want it to do (so far!) And I have found some really good tutorials online... what more could I ask for?
Thanks again for all your help!
Quote:Original post by thezbuffer
I think he meant the migration guide is stil in beta see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb197956.aspx. That article was written when XNA GSE was in beta and still applies to the released version.
You are correct about the lack of books but thats due to how new it is and hoe quickly version 1 appeared. However there are 4 in progress with the first less than 2 weeks away from publication.
XNA books on amazon
I just ordered my first XNA book from Amazon today so I wanted to let everyone know that if you prefer printed documentation like myself it's now available.
Couldn't resist after seeing the cool game the book's author was able to make in 4 days using XNA it was a nobrainer to give XNA a try.
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