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XNA

Started by homer_3 1 reply 550+ views
Original Post
homer_3
homer_3
Hopefully this is the right forum to post this in. I've read about XNA on wikipedia and MS's site a few other places but I'm still confused as to what it is that is supposed to make it easier to code games with. I've tried installing it to check it out myself, but it doesn't work. It says I need Visual C# Express and SP1 for Visual Express. I have Visual C# Express and when I try to install SP1 I get an error saying I don't have the right version or something. Instead of trouble shooting for a few hours to see what it's all about, I was hoping to get some people who have used it to shed some more light on XNA. Does it make working with meshes easier, does it have collision detection built in, does have functions for network comm built in, does it have camera objects that you can create and set views to, does it make it easier to move meshes around? What, exactly, is it that makes XNA easier to program games with?
ldeej
ldeej
XNA is not a game engine, it is a set of libraries that makes writing small games much easier compared to the C++ counter part, it provides a directX device, input layer, and some networking support, stuff that you usually have to either write or manage yourself.

It comes with a content pipeline for loading shaders, textures, meshes, etc, making it easier to get something up and running.

If you want to check it out uninstall Express and resintall it, then apply the SP, then install XNA
Palidine
Palidine
Significantly, XNA is the only thing that will allow hobbyists to develop applications that can be run on an unmodded XBOX 360. To me, that's really all it has going for it over some other library packages.

-me

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