Microsoft XNA C#

CheesySpread

CheesySpread

CheesySpread

Associate
Joined
21 Feb 2011
Posts
53
Hello, I was wondering how long it would take to learn C# and Microsoft XNA to develop Indie games for the Xbox & PC. How long did it take you to learn similar languages? I have no prior experience in coding just a load of free time and a passion for gaming.
 
It's a subjective experience, oddly enough, based on the subject that is learning. But in summary.. not quickly. :)
 
Learning the fundamentals of C# and such, three months or so, including Object Orientated Programming. XNA to get your head around that, 2D wise, again a month or so playing about with it. That's very simple stuff. Doing complex systems and such with clean functional, flexible code will take a few more months. Seriously, if you start now and work hard at it, maybe by Christmas? Again this is all simple 2D stuff, 3D stuff will take you considerably longer.
 
You could probably follow a tutorial and make a pong game relatively quickly, but to properly learn it will take many months.
 
I would us 3.1 if you are using XP.If I remember correctly it's to do with DX11.

XNA is great but you will have to learn a lot which is not part of the framework.

Even a simple game of noughts and crosses will take a long time if you are new to it!
 
Last edited:
UncleRuckus said:
I would us 3.1 if you are using XP.If I remember correctly it's to do with DX11.

XNA is great but you will have to learn a lot which is not part of the framework.

Even a simple game of noughts and crosses will take a long time if you are new to it!
Click to expand...

It still uses DirectX 9, but they enforce the need to have a DX10 GPU on the PC or basically XBox 360 GPU capabilities. You can change it to use the "Reach" profile instead of "HiDef" though (Somewhere in the project properties?), which will allow you to use XNA 4.0 on XP, but you will meet some limitations. See: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/03/12/reach-vs-hidef.aspx

And I would go with the latest XNA tbh, they have changed quite a few things here and there and all resources online will use 4.0. Also if you do 2D stuff, 3.0+ introduced a bug when you supplied rotation to the drawing methods, which basically resulted in something you don't want and cannot fix, 4.0+ fixed this.
 
Zhokel said:
It still uses DirectX 9, but they enforce the need to have a DX10 GPU on the PC or basically XBox 360 GPU capabilities. You can change it to use the "Reach" profile instead of "HiDef" though (Somewhere in the project properties?), which will allow you to use XNA 4.0 on XP, but you will meet some limitations. See: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2010/03/12/reach-vs-hidef.aspx

And I would go with the latest XNA tbh, they have changed quite a few things here and there and all resources online will use 4.0. Also if you do 2D stuff, 3.0+ introduced a bug when you supplied rotation to the drawing methods, which basically resulted in something you don't want and cannot fix, 4.0+ fixed this.
Click to expand...

Ah handy thanks. My recommendation for 3.1 was purely based on XP compatibility.

I may have to go and tinker!
 
UncleRuckus said:
Ah handy thanks. My recommendation for 3.1 was purely based on XP compatibility.

I may have to go and tinker!
Click to expand...

No problem, I forget it myself by using 4.0 a lot in Win7. I don't think there was much difference between 2.0 and 3.0, at least I don't remember much difference. Apart from that rotation bug xD. All I know in 4.0, they changed a few of the arguments in the spritebatch calls when it comes to 2D stuff. A lot of states going about if I remember correctly.
 
Learning the language is just the beginning. You have to learn the programming fundamentals or you will get nowhere.

One of the best resources for programmers is StackOverflow and I highly recommend you spend some time reading the advice for newbies there.

Free Programming Books - You can find quite a lot of C# books here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom