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Geek Culture / dx 9 october update and xbox 360 controller

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IanG
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 14:06
Hi,

I don't know how many of you know this but microsoft have released another update to directx 9c, this october update now includes one feature which looks very interesting and this is xinput

let me quote from the msdn
Quote: "The Xbox 360 console uses a gaming controller that is compatible with Windows. Applications can use the XInput API to communicate with these controllers when they are plugged into a Windows PC"


I think microsoft saw everyone liking the xbox controller and that people wanted to use it with their computers, search google for xbcd, so microsoft is jumping up in the game by changing it's controllers to be fully usb compatiable, ie use the same plug unlike the first xbox, so that you can use them with your pc to play games, I for one like the idea, finally we will be able to play games on our pc with a decent controller

also in this dx release:

the xact beta, the microsoft cross-platform audio creation tool

managed dx for whidbey

a few updates to the samples and tools

a few more technical articles

so there you go, i'm off to download it.


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Raven
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 16:25
Was released last week (for beta users anyways)
You can order the controllers from xidev@microsoft.com

OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 16:36
How much are they ?
And more importantly - when with DBPro allow use of them ?

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re faze
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 16:54
I wanna be cool just like raven!..
how does one go about getting into the industry?

you dont beat the system. the system beats you.
Raven
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 17:10
£25 each, but you also need to get the wireless adapter which is a further £20.

If there is demand to provide Dark Basic Professional Support, then I'm sure it will be added to the "to-do" list. It probably will be a good idea to add support for December - January.

JoelJ
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 19:19
Raven, just wondering, but have you become the offical 'voice' of TGC or something?
Because, not to be rude or anything, I've noticed that you always post things that no one knows about tgc except aparently you (and TGC Team of course)
just wondering...

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Darkbasic MADPSP
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 19:20
Quote: "Raven, just wondering, but have you become the offical 'voice' of TGC or something?
Because, not to be rude or anything, I've noticed that you always post things that no one knows about tgc except aparently you (and TGC Team of course)
just wondering...
"

hmm...

Probably raven has flown over tgc to find da codez

Gtas back and bigger and better than before
Benjamin
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 19:28
Lee, you forgot to log into your proper account.

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Raven
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 19:44
I thought Rich was the official voice of TGC.
Others are just pawns of the system.

I keep getting asked this over the last few days and put simply.
Does anyone see a Special "User" Status on my account?
That should answer any questions.

Sides I'm pretty sure there are a handful of other people who know what I know. Dont' see how the above could possibly be construed as anything other than things I personally hope will happen.

IanG
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 20:22
i know you can use an xbox controller with dbpro when using xbcd, you just use the joystick commands

something i really want to do is get hold of one of the dev xbox 360s, because i would really like to make a few things for it - imagine at job interviews, when asked about your abilities you open up your rucksack, put a dev machine on the desk and connect it up to a tv, that would be a really cool way to show off to them


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Raven
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 21:07
Quote: "something i really want to do is get hold of one of the dev xbox 360s, because i would really like to make a few things for it - imagine at job interviews, when asked about your abilities you open up your rucksack, put a dev machine on the desk and connect it up to a tv, that would be a really cool way to show off to them"


not had many job interviews have you..

Jeku
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 21:42
Quote: "something i really want to do is get hold of one of the dev xbox 360s, because i would really like to make a few things for it - imagine at job interviews, when asked about your abilities you open up your rucksack, put a dev machine on the desk and connect it up to a tv, that would be a really cool way to show off to them"


If your rucksack is as large as a full-size computer tower, maybe

Eric T
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 21:53
Quote: "
something i really want to do is get hold of one of the dev xbox 360s, because i would really like to make a few things for it - imagine at job interviews, when asked about your abilities you open up your rucksack, put a dev machine on the desk and connect it up to a tv, that would be a really cool way to show off to them"


So you like apple g5's?

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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 21:55
Who doesn't ?

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Eric T
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 21:58
Can't say I really do... then again, I don't work with em much.

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JoelJ
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Posted: 8th Oct 2005 22:05
Quote: "I keep getting asked this over the last few days"

I wonder why!

"TGC is planning on releasing such and such in this amount of time"
you have said something to that extent OVER and OVER and OVER again in the last few days...

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Raven
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 00:09
I've said stuff like that for years... what's so different now?

Mattman
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 01:20
The average IQ of a forum user nowadays decreased by about 20%...
The admiral
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 02:37
How do you order controllers?

The admiral
Ian T
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 06:35
Quote: "Does anyone see a Special "User" Status on my account?
That should answer any questions."


Uh - no

Blog is death. How? NO idea. But is murder. REVENGE!
IanG
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 11:53
Quote: "not had many job interviews have you"

hey i'm only just 16

Quote: "If your rucksack is as large as a full-size computer tower, maybe"

I can fit my xbox in my rucksack and the 360 is supposed to be smaller

Quote: "So you like apple g5's?"

not really, a dev 360 console looks exactly like a normal 360 except it is in a different colour and has a few more sockets on the back

Quote: " The average IQ of a forum user nowadays decreased by about 20%"

was that aimed at me?


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Jeku
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 12:41
Quote: "I can fit my xbox in my rucksack and the 360 is supposed to be smaller"


Quote: "not really, a dev 360 console looks exactly like a normal 360 except it is in a different colour and has a few more sockets on the back"


Actually, no. The dev 360 is a large Apple G5 tower with standard Xbox controllers. There's nothing small about it :-P

Raven
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 15:54
Unless you have the 360 Developer Console, but somehow I doubt you could afford or get the license for one. Microsoft have said they'll be shipping the Dev Consoles in November, which is good news.

Still most interviews you have often is you a few of the dev team, for the most part having a chat. Your suppose to have shown them what you can do before the interview.

So sending in a Dev CD for the X-Box 360 (provided that's a console they develop for) would be a good demo CD. This said, while the X-Box 360 is fairly simple to develop for; it's still for the most part C++ DirectX programming. With the added dimenions of Multi-Thread Processing, Memory Management, etc... It's something I'd recommend ONCE you've learnt windows game programming quite well.

IanG
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 16:08
i was talking about the actual console not a whole g5 lol

Quote: "This said, while the X-Box 360 is fairly simple to develop for; it's still for the most part C++ DirectX programming. With the added dimenions of Multi-Thread Processing, Memory Management, etc... It's something I'd recommend ONCE you've learnt windows game programming quite well."


I've had a look at the xbox software dev kit, just the stuff which sits on your pc and it is basically windows directx programming, which is better than programming for the playstation where they just give you low level access. With the playstation you have to write the equivalent of directx with the xbox it comes with it, thats why i like the xbox

I'm writing windows directx apps at the moment, it's a hell of a lot harder than dbpro


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Raven
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Posted: 9th Oct 2005 18:26
Yeah, but there's a tad more to consider console developing that with the PC.

IanG
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 00:18
go on


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re faze
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 01:31 Edited at: 10th Oct 2005 02:44
Quote: " Unless you have the 360 Developer Console, but somehow I doubt you could afford or get the license for one. "

bullcrap! i have a fairly good working knowlege of electrical engineering, ill just mod it. I have seen it done with the standard xbox so its not farfeched that it can be done eventually with the 360.
[edit]
i mean it can be modified to run homebrew code, as for the sdk... well ill find it somewhere (limewire,kazaa,you name it), no wait, i know someone who has gotten a hold of it, never mind.

you dont beat the system. the system beats you.
Raven
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 01:52
Quote: "bullcrap! i have a fairly good working knowlege of electrical engineering, ill just mod it. I have seen it done with the standard xbox so its not farfeched that it can be done eventually with the 360."


Fair enough. : sits and waits for the results :

Anyways back in the land of reality.
I've not had enough experience console developing (programming wise) to explain the differences properly. Hell, I don't know half of what C++ still. >_<

What I do know though is that the limitations force you to be more creative in how you approach development. I mean it might seem like the spects for the X-Box 360 are alot, but 512MB is roughly what you'd expect memory wise from just the system nowadays. Graphics cards themselves have a further 256MB dedicated at the same specs.

I dunno, with the 360 everything is much easier as you have a more pure system to work with. Microsoft have provided development systems that quite simply are out-standing. From a developer POV anyways. XNA is very lush to work with

This said you have to think more about the data being used. I dunno, probably better talking to someone with more experience programming wise.

DrakeX
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 01:59 Edited at: 10th Oct 2005 01:59
Developing for consoles is a dream. I dabbled in GBA dev for a few months, and was totally surprised at how relatively easy it was to program for it, despite the rather limited resources. I would imagine developing for something like the 360 would be amazing, especially with the dev kits backed by an entire multi-billion-dollar corporation and not just by a small user-run community. Additionally, it's so much easier to develop a game when you don't have to worry about the OS and varying hardware configs; if it runs fine on the test machine, it'll run fine on every other machine. That might change somewhat with the 360, what with the online "XBox button" that you can use to jump directly to the online features in the middle of the game, but it's not like a normal OS which is constantly leering over the game's shoulder.

Quote: "XNA is very lush to work with"


With what language? You say you don't know half of C++, so are you using a .Net language?

"when it's done" means "we have no idea, we forgot to do that; we were hoping you would all forget we promised <insert exotic promise here>"
Jeku
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 11:24
Quote: "i mean it can be modified to run homebrew code, as for the sdk... well ill find it somewhere (limewire,kazaa,you name it), no wait, i know someone who has gotten a hold of it, never mind."


Yeah okay, try finding the 360 SDK anywhere :-P And a modded Xbox is a hell of a lot different than a development console. They are not the same thing. You can't hook up your modded Xbox to Visual Studio .NET and compile straight across the the Xbox.

Quote: "Developing for consoles is a dream. I dabbled in GBA dev for a few months, and was totally surprised at how relatively easy it was to program for it, despite the rather limited resources. I would imagine developing for something like the 360 would be amazing, especially with the dev kits backed by an entire multi-billion-dollar corporation and not just by a small user-run community."


I agree. I'm working on a GBA port right now and it's amazing. And for my real job I'm working on an Xbox 360 game. There are so many examples on the dev kit (although many are ported from the original Xbox XDK).

The difficulty is in the multi-threaded architecture. It is incredibly difficult working with threading architecture when you have to worry about synchronization issues. And my particular section is A.I., which is running on the same thread as physics because it needs to raycast, so if I perform too many raycasts in a tick then the rest of the system doesn't know to wait. Therefore if, say, an object is destroyed from another thread, after I raycasted to it in my thread, and I try and access that memory location again, I will get junk data and the game will most likely crash.

However, if you can beef up your framework to handle most cases, which we have done, and really take advantage of the horsepower, then you can work wonders.

blanky
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 14:39
Getting back on-topic... Why the hell did Microsoft write a new API, just for one of their controllers? Havn't they got in trouble before for this kind of thing (locking in systems so that they only work with their products)?

And anyway, as a software developer I would much rather use DirectInput and check support for a couple of propertiery commands than have to implement code for both DirectInput and XInput.

/me starts download of 200MB DX SDK, for .NET 2.0 beta support...

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Raven
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 15:05
Not really XInput is XNA. So any controller developed for the XNA Cross-Platform API can use it.

Currently only Microsoft's X-Box 360 uses XNA. Atleast officially that is. So this is actually a case of providing support for thier own hardware, for the public. Usually this would be kept pure as part of the XDK.

Quote: "With what language? You say you don't know half of C++, so are you using a .Net language?"


They're all .NET now

IanG
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 18:08
Quote: "They're all .NET now"


really? i mean programming consoles in .net, wouldn't that be slower than c++?


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Raven
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 18:18
Quote: "really? i mean programming consoles in .net, wouldn't that be slower than c++?"


It's only slow on Windows because Managed Code runs through JIT COD. So your getting your code compiled at run-time for that system.

In terms of something like the X-Box 360 however, what this means is that it's compiled and can also be highly optimised like any other language at compile time.

So you don't get that speed loss despite it being being Managed.
Besides the speed loss for the most part comes from overly complex library code. It's like 5% difference between Native and Managed when programming games, because your not relying on several aspects of the system.

Even then as your coding skill gets better programs speed does too.
Just look at MS Paint .NET.
v1.0 runs horribly on the min specs
v2.0 runs at a reasonable speed
v2.1 now runs pretty equal to Gimp

I don't doubt they get it running even faster over the next few months.

IanG
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 21:51
that makes sense, but one thing that has confused me to do with the 360 is why have microsoft gone for an ibm core? and while we are on the topic of cores, why have apple said they are going to change over to intel, what makes the ibm cores so good that ms move to them and apple move away from them? i can undeerstand apple might want to move into the market for os but do they really think they can fight off windows; and could it be that ms have moved to thte ibm core for security reasons, trying to make it harder for people to make mod chips etc?


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Raven
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 22:27
Microsoft have moved to IBM PowerPC, because quite simple the GameCube is a piece of engineering genius.

I doubt there is a professional developer out there who will tell you that the GameCube hardware is simple remarkable to the point at which it brings a tear to your eye.

It's not exactly a fantastic console to develop on, but technologically it's awesome. If you look at how Microsoft have designed in the inside of the X-Box 360... it's very clear they saw the GameCube and thought "perfect!" rubbing thier hands together.

Typical Microsoft fashion you can't just steal something, you have to give it more bells and whistles so it looks and performs better than who your trying to compete with. So this time Microsoft really have got into the "console" mentality.

RISC Processing, with RAM that doesn't bottleneck as well as streaming technologies. This is how a console is suppose to be made.

This is because you don't need to multi-task on a console. Not needed even slightly. Consoles are suppose to be basically for playing games. Everything else is a bonus.

With Apple the arugment was over supply & demand. They didn't want to move, but IBM failed time and time again to provide them with what they needed. So Apple have moved to Intel because, well they can supply exactly what Apple need.

Enough horesepower and chips to finally compete realistically against the Windows-Compatible PC. MacOSX is also no doubt the only operating system on the market capable of this.

Modding won't stop using an IBM Core, but there is hardware protection that'll make it more difficult to pirate. Not much though as they're still using standard DVD.

Nintendo use a special Panasonic DVD-RAM, which provides similar capacity to DVD; but far more speed, scratch resistance (and a special protection layer)

Zero #43
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 22:33
where on microsoft.com do you download it??

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Jeku
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 23:42
Quote: " where on microsoft.com do you download it??"


Download what??

The other thing that's lame about the 360 development, is that they're forcing every game to be on Xbox Live. They're also forcing things like a points system to be saved from every game, that can be viewed from the dashboard (I beliieve it's something like 50 points / game). Therefore you need to award achievements for game milestones--- but it's not an option, it's a requirement!

Raven
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Posted: 10th Oct 2005 23:45
I thought it was 1000 Points? Like 50 points an objective. Forces you to have a number of key objectives.

Silly really, especially considering how easy the dev system is.
I'm also not happy about the whole "Live!" issue. As it forces constant maintainance.

Quite a bit of Halo and Halo 2 downtime where developers usually would get to relax had the network programmers constantly fixing hacks, and such from thier network code. While for a company like Bungie this is fair enough, for smaller teams this could financially be unfeasible.

MiR
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 00:10
Quote: " scratch resistance (and a special protection layer) "

At last. A REAL advancement. I had heard about this mysterical thing but I thought Thompson or whoever were develeping it for their HD-DVD.

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re faze
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 02:58
any news about blue ray discs?

you dont beat the system. the system beats you.
Benjamin
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 03:00
Ahh forget blu-ray, they should hurry up with the HDV's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

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Raven
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 04:08
BluRay is now quite a semi-popular format in Japan.
The first PC and Players are now hitting the market in reasonable volume, the price is set to fall a little but your still probably talking atleast £100 from retailers.

Panasonic do a really nice BluRay / DVD-RAM Combo

re faze
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 04:23
so they are out already... when do you reckon they will become popular in the us?

you dont beat the system. the system beats you.
Raven
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 05:08
I doubt they will, the only way they could become popular is through the Playstation 3 making it so.

While the Playstation 2 helped usher in the DVD age, this was backed up by Microsoft and the lowering costs of Players.

This time Sony will be on thier own. While BluRay is certainly the future, I doubt anyone will be willing to phase the format out for another 5years atleast. If you think about it DVD has only just really become an accepted medium over VHS.

While BluRay doesn't mean changing your library and it'll run DVDs, it does mean more costs for the publishers. They're not likely to want to change so early imo

It's more likely that BluRay will replace recordable VHS, rather than DVD itself.

re faze
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 06:38
the dvd still seems fairly new. also the thing that keeps dvd's from replacing cd's is that dvd's arent cheap, especially the dual layer dvd's

you dont beat the system. the system beats you.
IanG
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 18:16
@Raven: that makes a lot of things clear on the apple and xbox stuff - thanks

there is just one thing, this is a section out of the xbox 360 preparation document available from the xbox website

Quote: "Hardware
The Xbox 360 console is composed of a PowerPC-based triple-core CPU and a custom ATI graphics processor. Neither of these processors is available in standard PC-based hardware. We recommend the following system for emulating Xbox 360 using a PC:
• Microsoft Windows® XP
• PC with multiple hardware threads (hyperthreads) or multiple independent CPU cores
• ATI graphics card with support for High Level Shading Language (HLSL) shader model 3.0 (when available)
• Widescreen HDTV monitor
Software
Xbox 360 games are programmed using the Microsoft® Visual Studio® development system. The Xbox 360 development kit (XDK) supports development using either C or C++. We recommend the following software for writing Xbox 360 code using a PC:
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio .NET 2003
• Direct3D 9.0 Software Development Kit
• Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT)
"


I can undeerstand the bit about hardware - which suggests imo that the 360 xdk will be windows only - but you were saying about xna being .net like, why then do they say it supports either c or c++? does that mean it will have no support for .net? or have i missed something?


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Raven
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 19:03
Actually the X-Box 360 (XNA) for the most part is simply DirectX9.
This is why your SDK has on the installation screen:

"DirectX9 & XNA"

or something to that effect. Currently Microsoft do not offer a public version of the XDK 360. So for the most part developers need to rely on good old Windows 2000/XP Machines.

.NET is just Managed Code, which isn't restricted by language but compiler. The Microsoft C++ v8.0 Compiler is capable of out-putting Code in C/C++ but also .NET CLR 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 as well as being able to export multiple Processor Types, Formats, etc.

There is just so much to the v8.0 Compiler, if you want to develop for the X-Box 360 I would STRONGLY suggest an upgrade. Especially as it has OpenMP built-in, which helps infinitely with Multi-Thread programming.

Remember though that .NET isn't just constricted by CLR.
It's just the MSILASM (Microsoft InterOp Language Assembly) that process *all* Microsoft languages to the base base Assembly which can then either be Managed (CLR) or Native (ASM) to a particular Machine without having to reprogram a single line of code.

CLR allows you to do this real-time, with a small performance hit. Native runs identically to an application that would've originally been compiled to standard hardware.

The only way to tell the difference is to use the Native Mode in 2003 and 2005. The optimisation in 2005 has made the speed difference almost minimal. This then translates to other processors and systems too.

So you can fully develop your game using XNA, test it on your Windows PC then Compile it and it'll run identically on the X-Box 360. The examples for XInput, and Media Centre already provide you with simple examples that will run between both machines seemlessly.

IanG
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Posted: 11th Oct 2005 19:09
Quote: "The Microsoft C++ v8.0 Compiler is capable of out-putting Code in C/C++ but also .NET CLR 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 as well"


i never knew that

Quote: "So you can fully develop your game using XNA, test it on your Windows PC then Compile it and it'll run identically on the X-Box 360"


that's a good idea


amd athlon xp 2600+,1280mb,FX 5200 128mb,200gb,xp pro sp2
Jeku
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Posted: 12th Oct 2005 02:22
Quote: "So you can fully develop your game using XNA, test it on your Windows PC then Compile it and it'll run identically on the X-Box 360. The examples for XInput, and Media Centre already provide you with simple examples that will run between both machines seemlessly.
"


Hmmm... haven't seen the code run on a Windows machine. At work we have to add the Xbox 360 to the My Xbox Neighbourhood then run the game through Visual Studio, which automatically copies the code over to the Xbox 360 machine hooked up to the TV and runs it on there.

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