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Games: Direct3D

The document discusses the history and capabilities of the XNA game development framework. It details how XNA allowed developers to easily create games for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone using C# and other high-level languages. However, Microsoft later dropped support for XNA in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. The document explores the Direct3D and Direct2D templates that can now be used to build games for the Windows Store instead of XNA.

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49 views2 pages

Games: Direct3D

The document discusses the history and capabilities of the XNA game development framework. It details how XNA allowed developers to easily create games for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone using C# and other high-level languages. However, Microsoft later dropped support for XNA in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. The document explores the Direct3D and Direct2D templates that can now be used to build games for the Windows Store instead of XNA.

Uploaded by

ljjb
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CHAPTER 10

Games

Everyone who has ever played videogames has at least once dreamed of creating their very own game. I know I have,
on more than one occasion. But games were built in C++ or some other low-level language, and, as a high-level
developer, I am only familiar with languages like C# or Java. In 2004, Microsoft announced the XNA Framework,
a framework that would make game development a breeze by allowing developers to use the power and simplicity of
the .NET framework to build their games. But the framework didn’t stop there. XNA allowed hobby game developers
to launch their games on the popular Xbox 360 console, followed by Windows Phone 7 a few years later. Developers
can now target three popular gaming platforms. In fact, every game available on Windows Phone 7 is built with XNA
because the platform doesn’t support anything else.
Fast forward to today, where XNA is very popular and widely used. But then Microsoft decides that Windows 8
doesn’t get any support for the framework. Windows 8 games can only be built in JavaScript or C++. And the same
goes for Windows Phone 8, although on the Windows Phone platform we can still use XNA because of backward
compatibility with Windows Phone 7, but the new features like in-app purchases are not available. Needless to say,
the XNA community was a bit disappointed with this news.

Direct3D
So what can we do today to build games for the Windows Store? There are two templates included in the Windows 8
SDK that can be found under the C++ language in the New Project screen—Direct2D and Direct3D—as shown in
Figure 10-1.

N. Vermeir, Windows 8 App Projects


© Nico Vermeir 2013 173
CHAPTER 10 N GAMES

Figure 10-1. Direct2D and Direct3D templates

The Direct3D template creates a project that when it is run shows a spinning cube like the one shown in
Figure 10-2.

Figure 10-2. The spinning cube of Direct3D

174

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