You're probably right, I think I've found where the required frameworks can be accessed as redistributables ( I had assumed a user would have to be prompted themselves to install directly from the MS website, breaking the game installation ), although I'm still not certain...

Many thanks for all your input.

You can find the required DirectX components and XNA redist installer in C:\Program Files\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v2.0\Redist. Then you just add in one for .NET 2.0 and you're all set. The XNA redist installer is something like 2MB, the DirectX components total up to about 7MB and then the .NET 2.0 installer is about 22MB making it about 31MB of pre-requisite stuff. Not the greatest for small games, but it's not that bad really.

And in case you want the official listing, here's the MSDN page of what you need to distribute XNA 2.0 games: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb464156.aspx.

So i have a question related to XNA..

Being a developer, naturally i am fairly inquisitive and want to know all the details..

The problem i have, coming from little to no DirectX programming background is that the XNA site and "documentation/tutorials" seems rather...Childish?

I dont want to do tutorials where i am just following instuctions and copying large chunks of code with little to no explanation as to what the calls are actually doing.

Copying some giant thing of code and saying "This initializes your DirectX window!" helps me none..thats basically what all of the tutorials in the 3.0 SDK documentation are like...

Are there good sites, or books out there with more technical knowledge? Or would it be a good idea for me to just continue learning/reading books on DirectX w/ C++ and apply that knowledge to XNA? I'm experienced with C++ and know a good deal of C#/VB.NET so choosing a language isn't a huge deal...

Right now i am reading the Introduction to DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach

Quote:Original post by FuzzeWuzze
The problem i have, coming from little to no DirectX programming background is that the XNA site and "documentation/tutorials" seems rather...Childish?

XNA Game Studio is generally aimed at helping hobbyist and students get started with programming. So that's kind of how they aim most of the educational content on that site. Personally I like the theme on that site. :)

But anyway, sites like Ziggyware.com, XNADevelopment.com, and Riemer's XNA Tutorials which offer tons of resources for more tutorials and there's always the full MSDN documentation for XNA Game Studio. Needless to say there are plenty of resources out there that are not geared towards copying code without explanation.

Quote:Original post by LeGreg
I didn't see any formal engagement from Microsoft on the future of XNA.

What do you mean by this? Are you looking for some sort of promise that they won't close down XNA Game Studio in the near future? (By technicality 'XNA' will never go away since that is the branding used for all their game technologies now [including native DirectX].)

Quote:See for example :
XNA and DirectX10

The XNA framework will not support Direct3D 10 simply because the Xbox 360 does not support Direct3D 10. That said even most professional PC games at this point do not support Direct3D 10. It's not all that surprising considering the rather small Vista install base. The XNA framework is intended to be as cross-platform as can be so that users can easily make games that work on both PC and Xbox 360 should they choose to do so.

If D3D10 is an important feature to you, then yes, you'll want to use either native Direct3D with C++ or something like SlimDX. However considering the small Vista base that even has the chance to leverage it (keeping in mind that a good portion of the already small Vista install base is likely not your target audience), I would say go for whichever API you find easiest to work with. The API choice is not going to make your game any better or worse, so it's really just which tool you want to use in the process.