\Managed DirectX and XNA Framework news
9/20/06: Managed DirectX 2.0 dies officially October 5th 2006
Managed DirectX 2.0 has been included in the SDK as a beta since October 2005. Once the XNA framework was announced Microsoft confirmed that Managed DirectX 2.0 would never ship and would be replaced by the XNA framework. The Managed DirectX 2.0 beta files will stop working on October 5th 2006 (announcement, discussion) and code needs to be migrated back to MDX 1.1 or forward to the XNA framework.
Microsoft announced the XNA framework at GDC 2006. As suspected from the pre GDC 'leaks', Tom Miller moved teams from the DirectX team to the XNA team to work on the new framework. Since it makes no sense to have 2 managed wrappers around DirectX Al announced that MDX 2.0 is being rolled into XNA framework. As a result the Managed DirectX 2.0 beta in the SDK is frozen. This is a tough decision because the current state of the beta is most politely described as 'incomplete'. There are some significant APIs missing and if you require one of those you have no current timescale for a fix.
Even with a bigger team this couldn't possibly be a rewrite so don't expect the API to have huge changes (I suspect similar stuff to what you saw between MDX1 and MDX 2). Tom also confirmed this: "many of the API's in the framework will look quite familiar to developers who have used MDX2"
If you are wondering what to target then Tom has some advice. Notice the vague timings - this is because delivery of XNA framework has no public schedule. Also notice from Al's announcement there is a commitment to supporting MDX 1.1 applications "We plan on supporting MDX 1.1 for quite a while, especially since customers have shipped applications using MDX 1.1.
Bottom line - stick with MDX 1.1 unless you really need to be leading edge and you can live with no docs, no support, no end user runtime and an incomplete API for a undetermined period of time. For historical purposes only the following additional docs are available:
- API Differences Note: this analysis was done on the October beta.
- Generated API Documentation from Mykre
9/14/06: 3D Evolution now using XNA Framework
3D Evolution is engine written in C# and .Net 2.0. The team have informed me that they have their code converted over to the XNA framework and are planning a release on October 15th 2006. During the XNA beta the engine will be free to try but they will be charging for the final release. The engine is unique in that it also targets Windows Mobile 5.0 as well as the usual PC and through XNA the Xbox 360. They have a new video to watch which sadly is rather repetitive and doesn't seem to show off too many engine features.
A previous verson of the engine and 4 tutorials can be downloaded from the download site [registration required]. The website also includes a full list of features, screenshots, a PDF of a danish magazine that featured some of the work on the engine and forums.
(Note that the guys writing this are Danish, so before you comment on the bad English think about how good your Danish is and maybe offer to help them translate.)
9/13: Added Australia/NewZealand, Austin
.Net user groups have had a lot of success all around the world and there are also many local chapters of the IGDA. So it kind of makes sense that either these groups will be interested in XNA, or that some folk will want to set up their own XNA specific user groups. If you have interest in your city, then drop me your contact details and I will try to hook you up with like minded folk in your area. Of course if you want a talk from The ZMan I'll happily come visit especially the Hawaii or Australia user groups.... just send the air ticket...
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USA
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FL
- Orlando: Joel is calling for interested folk in Orlando to contact him if they are interested at joelmartinez@gmail.com.
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TX
- Austin: Contact Isaac Squires at Isaac.Squires@gmail.com. Isaac also runs the IGDA-Indie group too so should be able to get this sort of thing up and running pretty quick.
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WA
- Puget Sound: I'm not sure I have the time right now to actually organize something but if there is enough demand locally here maybe someone else can organize. Email me zman@thezbuffer.com if its something you would be interested in.
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FL
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Australia/New Zealand
- Melbourne/All Cities - contact Glenn at ausxna@virtualrealm.com.au. Glenn is in Melbourne himself but will work various people to work out other locations.
Updated Mitch to his latest position, and added XNA content
Mitch is a program manager on the XNA framework team. Previous to this he was (one of?) the guy(s) responsible for Terrarium. He's got several articles about managed DirectX and game development. There was rumor (and a screenshot which has gone) that a future version of Terrarium might have some real 3-d (Managed DirectX?) in it. He also did some 3D work on something called Mantis.
These days he is 100% on the XNA platform and his blog has plenty of good content:
8/30/06: Updated link to new blog, added to XNA category
David is the community manager for the Windows Gaming and Graphics group at Microsoft. His blog often has Managed DirectX and XNA Framework content as he also written 2 books Beginning .NET Game Programming in C# and Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET
Useful blog entries:
