VS2008? to upgrade or not to upgrade?
I have VS2005. I have not yet upgraded to VS2008. I have the basic version. I will be creating DX10 mdx games via the SlimDX library. I just upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64. Is there any good reason for me to upgrade to VS2008 that anyone can think of? This has probably been asked before but I could use some last minute advice before forking out the cash to make up my mind.
Thanks,
Devin
One advantage that VS 2008 has over VS 2005 is that it has everything you need to run windows programs built into it. With VS 2005, you have to go through and set up the Platform SDK to do this, but you don't have to do that with VS 2008. Also, 2008 probably has new features, which should be on the product page.
I don't know if this is quite the answer you were looking for, but it is definitely an advantage for VS 2008.
I don't know if this is quite the answer you were looking for, but it is definitely an advantage for VS 2008.
VS2008 gives you .NET 3.5 so you could mix all the new C# 3.0 features with your game such as auto-implemented properties and extension methods. Both of these features I find very handy when working in 2008. There's also LINQ, but you aren't as likely to use that in a game scenario because it generates a bit of garbage.
Yes, and for native C++, VS2008 has some nice features I really like :
- improved debugger support for threads
- better debugger visualizers (for example, for enum flags you see the enum combination, not the integer value)
- /MP switch for multithreaded compilations, on a Quad Core the build time is greatly reduced
Add to this a really easy update of the project files, so I'd say yes, upgrade.
- improved debugger support for threads
- better debugger visualizers (for example, for enum flags you see the enum combination, not the integer value)
- /MP switch for multithreaded compilations, on a Quad Core the build time is greatly reduced
Add to this a really easy update of the project files, so I'd say yes, upgrade.
I'm not upgrading. I have Visual Studio 2005 Standard and I would have to upgrade to 2008 Express.
Currently 2005 is the most widely supported (Boost/XNA come to mind) and I'm glad it's starting to replace the VC6 project files in open source projects.
Currently 2005 is the most widely supported (Boost/XNA come to mind) and I'm glad it's starting to replace the VC6 project files in open source projects.
Well I'm running VS 2005 with VS 2008 currently since there is no official support for XNA, perforce plug-in,C++ code snippets in VS2008 currently or any number or 3rd party add-in's etc. At least the latest DX SDK finally support it.
If you are a C# programmer and thinking of using the new C# 3.0 stuff it's a no brainer since that's the only way to get the new stuff like Linq.
The only other really compelling reason I can see is for the .NET Framework Library Source Code access which is VS 2008 only.
Otherwise, if you know your 3rd party plug-ins work in VS2008 or aren't an XNA user it's probably worth it to upgrade since there are a ton of bug fixes and performance improvements compared to VS2005 especially if you use VB.
Some of the more prominent performance improvements in Visual Studio 2008 that we see include:
· Rebuilding a Visual Basic project and running a background compiler is 3x faster and uses 3x less memory. More about this topic here.
· Scrolling large C# files in the Editor is 100% faster, while typing in new text is 50% faster
· The response time of IntelliSense with large types in C# is up to 10 times faster
· Incremental build time runs up to 90% faster on C++/CLI project solutions. More about this topic here.
· Office Word and Excel files are processed 20x faster on the server
· TFS Version Control command processing was re-written to support unlimited sized operations on key commands without being memory bound on the server. In our measurements, key Commands also run 10% - 60% faster, with the larger improvements associated with bigger projects. More about the work to improve TFS scalability here and here.
We also focused on performance improvements that exploit multi-core hardware. As I blogged about earlier, we added multi-threaded support to MSBuild. In addition, using the /MP switch, you can significantly improve your C++ project build time – internally we’ve seen improvements of up to 30% when building the C++ Frontend compiler on dual-core hardware. Significant performance improvements were also made in the .NET Framework 3.5 runtime to streamline the CLR thread pool to help multithreaded applications of all kinds. These architectural changes, when combined with socket API changes, improve asynchronous socket I/O throughput up to 70% when a 2nd processor core is available, for example. The full scope of this work is discussed in more detail here.
[Edited by - daviangel on March 22, 2008 2:11:00 AM]
If you are a C# programmer and thinking of using the new C# 3.0 stuff it's a no brainer since that's the only way to get the new stuff like Linq.
The only other really compelling reason I can see is for the .NET Framework Library Source Code access which is VS 2008 only.
Otherwise, if you know your 3rd party plug-ins work in VS2008 or aren't an XNA user it's probably worth it to upgrade since there are a ton of bug fixes and performance improvements compared to VS2005 especially if you use VB.
Some of the more prominent performance improvements in Visual Studio 2008 that we see include:
· Rebuilding a Visual Basic project and running a background compiler is 3x faster and uses 3x less memory. More about this topic here.
· Scrolling large C# files in the Editor is 100% faster, while typing in new text is 50% faster
· The response time of IntelliSense with large types in C# is up to 10 times faster
· Incremental build time runs up to 90% faster on C++/CLI project solutions. More about this topic here.
· Office Word and Excel files are processed 20x faster on the server
· TFS Version Control command processing was re-written to support unlimited sized operations on key commands without being memory bound on the server. In our measurements, key Commands also run 10% - 60% faster, with the larger improvements associated with bigger projects. More about the work to improve TFS scalability here and here.
We also focused on performance improvements that exploit multi-core hardware. As I blogged about earlier, we added multi-threaded support to MSBuild. In addition, using the /MP switch, you can significantly improve your C++ project build time – internally we’ve seen improvements of up to 30% when building the C++ Frontend compiler on dual-core hardware. Significant performance improvements were also made in the .NET Framework 3.5 runtime to streamline the CLR thread pool to help multithreaded applications of all kinds. These architectural changes, when combined with socket API changes, improve asynchronous socket I/O throughput up to 70% when a 2nd processor core is available, for example. The full scope of this work is discussed in more detail here.
[Edited by - daviangel on March 22, 2008 2:11:00 AM]
Quote:Original post by rolkA
Yes, and for native C++, VS2008 has some nice features I really like :
...
- /MP switch for multithreaded compilations, on a Quad Core the build time is greatly reduced
Doesn't seem to work for me. The switch doesn't do anything. Is it not avaliable in the Express edition? :(
Cool, thanks for the info. Still trying to decide. I'm kinda tossed. I just don't know If I'm seeing the price in there for what I'll be doing? Darn this is so confusing.
Quote:Original post by shurcoolQuote:Original post by rolkA
Yes, and for native C++, VS2008 has some nice features I really like :
...
- /MP switch for multithreaded compilations, on a Quad Core the build time is greatly reduced
Doesn't seem to work for me. The switch doesn't do anything. Is it not avaliable in the Express edition? :(
I don't know, I don't think so. If you build a projet with this switch, this should launch two instances of cl.exe (four on a quad core), and it will compile sevral .cpp files at a time (but it's multithreaded project-wise, not "compilation-unit"-wise, so you need to have several .cpp files in the same project).
Oh and it works only for C++ projects.
devronious, if you are not using the DotNet framework, you don't have to upgrade, but if you are using express editions (=> free), there is no reason to stick with VS2005 ;)
I'm using Visual Studio Standard 2005 and my language is C#. I'm heavy into DotNet. My whole graphics engine is c# with some unsafe pointer areas for speed. Trying to make a really fast managed engine. Eventually I'll make it work as an internet engine for MMORPG types. I'll need the DotNet since it's just me making the engine at the moment and speed of programming is of the essence.
I just upgraded to a quad core but I guess the parallel compile only works with c++, per rolkA?
Quote:Oh and it works only for C++ projects.
I just upgraded to a quad core but I guess the parallel compile only works with c++, per rolkA?
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