Morning all, As the more observant amongst you will probably have noticed, forum #10 is no longer just the "DirectX" forum and is now the "DirectX and XNA" forum.

Quote:From the main forum listing page: DirectX and XNA Questions and discussion regarding all technologies under Microsoft's XNA branding: DirectX, XInput, XACT, XAudio, XNA Game Studio Express (all platforms), XNA Build and XNA Framework. [Forum FAQ]

For the most part the change is cosmetic and things will be business as usual. For a while now there has been discussion about trying to better capture the XNA related threads within the GameDev.Net forums - over the last year or two the technologies provided by Microsoft have changed substantially. Simply covering the traditional native DirectX API now seems a little narrow-focussed [smile] That said, the big motivation against this change was that XNA is actually a brand that covers many technologies and each of those technologies broadly covers entire fields within game and multimedia software development. The risk was that calling this the XNA forum may result in a huge number of mis-placed threads that actually still belong in the other more specific forums. This means that people wanting to discuss 'pure' DirectX/XNA topics get drowned out and also means that those asking the questions may not get exposure to the many experts within the community that could answer their question(s). The true solution to this problem will be a tagging system for threads - something that has been discussed on numerous occasions and should appear in a future revision of the GDNet forum software. Changing the current forum is therefore seen as more of a temporary solution until this bigger and better feature is rolled out. No, I don't know when this will be! [grin] So, what is and is not appropriate for this shiny new forum?? Belongs here:

• Discussion specifically about one of the API's or techologies listed in the quote above. For example, programming errors when using DirectX-specific code.
• Discussion about the wider DirectX and XNA ecosystem - best practices, architectural details etc... For example, which technology should you best use to solve a problem, or how might you design your application to best utilize a specific DirectX or XNA technology.
• General discussion or gossip about the DirectX and XNA platform, tools and technologies. Not all threads must be expressed in pure binary discussing nothing but source code and architectural diagrams [grin]

Belongs elsewhere:

• General programming questions - linker errors, compiler errors (not specifically related to a DirectX/XNA API), IDE problems, C# or .NET general questions. Instead try Game Programming, General Programming or For Beginners.
• Graphics theory questions - divorcing these from specific questions about Direct3D is difficult, but if you have a speculative question about the best algorithm or technique to use then try Graphics Programming & Theory.
• Physics questions - currently there are no specific physics-oriented technologies under the XNA umbrella. Discussing how to integrate a physics solution with other DirectX and XNA technologies is fine, but the actual implementation detail of physics algorithms and calculations belongs in Maths & Physics
• Mathematics questions - unless specifically about using the mathematics libraries in XNA or DirectX components (e.g. D3DX) these questions belong in Maths & Physics, or if they are specific to an graphics algorithm (for example) consider Graphics Programming & Theory
• Networking and multiplayer technical questions - in the managed XNA components there are now networking features, so feel free to ask specific questions about them here. For more general discussion on how to handle networking and multiplayer aspects of game development please use the Multiplayer and Network Programming forum
• Artificial intelligence - try, funnily enough, the artificial intelligence forum
• Content creation - this is a technology-specific forum, but obviously any game or multimedia app will need content (visual or audio) and probably some narrative or story element. Consider the 'Creative Side' forums - Game Design, Music and Sound, Visual Arts and Writing for Games
• [EDIT: Topics about...] Women, self-help advice (remember: game developers don't get paid much so there are also lots moonlighting as trained medical professionals as well) and other 'lifestyle' discussion goes in the lounge

(Note: I state alternative forums for the benefit of the community rather than some love of rules [smile]. Posting in the right place gets your thread noticed by the people best experienced and placed to answer your questions or get involved in your discussions) Here ends the public service announcement - questions? comments? Cheers, Jack [Edited by - jollyjeffers on May 21, 2008 7:09:54 AM]

You could petition the staff to have it renamed as "<--- STEVE LOOK HERE NOW <---" if that'd help your Active Topics filtering [grin]

Quote:Original post by Evil Steve
... and blinking ...

That's soo 1990's. Get with the Web-2-oh[-dear] times Steve.

Quote:Original post by Sneftel

Quote:Original post by jollyjeffers

Belongs elsewhere:

...

• Women, self-help advice (remember: game developers don't get paid much so there are also lots moonlighting as trained medical professionals as well) and other 'lifestyle' discussion goes in the lounge
  

Women belong elsewhere?

Kitchen?

Just throwing this out there, but it would be great if the forum subtitle included SlimDX in the list. At this point the forum is starting to get a fair number of threads related to the subject, and it HAS become a very viable alternative to XNA at this point.