If you have an XNA Game Studio project that includes an XACT2 audio project and plan to upgrade it to XNA Game Studio 3.1, there is an additional manual step you must take to upgrade your XACT2 project to XACT3 format.

There is some information about this scenario in the XNA Game Studio 3.1 documentation.  Unfortunately, the documentation topics don’t list the full error message that you will see if you compile your upgraded project without also upgrading the XACT project, so searching for the error message doesn’t lead to the exact documentation topics that are intended to help in this scenario.  Hopefully this blog post will help guide folks who hit this error in the right direction.

Description of the issue

If you have an existing XNA Game Studio 3.0 project that uses an XACT2 audio project, then you upgrade to XNA Game Studio 3.1, you will see an error like the following in the Visual Studio error list when you attempt to compile it with XNA Game Studio 3.1:

The .xap file was created with a version of XACT that is incompatible with the XNA Framework Content Pipeline version used by this project. Refer to the documentation for options to resolve this mismatch.

Some guidance about this upgrade issue with XACT projects can be found in the following topics in the documentation:

• Upgrading XNA Game Studio Projects - in the table of contents, this topic is located at XNA Game Studio 3.1 | Getting Started with XNA Game Studio | Upgrading XNA Game Studio Projects (or via this link if you have XNA Game Studio 3.1 installed).
• Upgrade Guide: XNA Game Studio 3.0 to XNA Game Studio 3.1 – in the table of contents, this topic is located at XNA Game Studio 3.1 | Getting Started with XNA Game Studio | Upgrading XNA Game Studio Projects | Upgrade Guide: XNA Game Studio 3.0 to XNA Game Studio 3.1 (or via this link if you have XNA Game Studio 3.1 installed).

The following information in the above topics is applicable to help resolve this XACT compilation error message:

XNA Game Studio 3.1 projects must use the Microsoft Cross Platform Audio Creation Tool version 3 (XACT3), which is new to XNA Game Studio 3.1. The version of XACT provided with XNA Game Studio 3.0, XACT2, writes project files (.xap) that are incompatible with XNA Game Studio 3.1 projects. XNA Game Studio 3.0 projects must continue to use XACT2. Both versions of XACT are available in the Start menu, under All Programs | Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 | Tools.

How to update from XACT2 to XACT3 in XNA Game Studio 3.1

Here are some more specific steps you can use to upgrade an XACT2 project used in XNA Game Studio 3.0 to the version of XACT3 so they can be used by an XNA Game Studio 3.1 project:

1. On a system with XNA Game Studio 3.1 installed, click on the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 | Tools | Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool 3 (XACT3).
2. In the Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) v3.0 tool, open the .xap file from the project that you upgraded from XNA Game Studio 3.0 to XNA Game Studio 3.1.  When it loads, you should see the following message in the XACT UI:
   
   ---------------------------
   XACT Version Mismatch
   ---------------------------
   This project file was created with the August 2007 release of XACT. You are running the March 2009 release.
   If you save this project, it will be saved as the current version and may no longer work with the version of XACT it was originally created with.
   ---------------------------
   OK  
   ---------------------------
   
   
3. Back up your .xap file before clicking OK if you would like to keep a copy of the old project (an upgrade does not happen automatically).
4. Click OK to upgrade the .xap project to 3.0 format.
5. Save the .xap project in the XACT UI and close the XACT UI.
6. Go back to Visual Studio 2008, open the project that you upgraded from XNA Game Studio 3.0 to 3.1 and choose to build it again.

Additional notes about this error message

The steps above explain how to upgrade an XACT2 project created with a previous version of XNA Game Studio to an XACT3 project that can be used with XNA Game Studio 3.1.  However, there are a few different scenarios where the “.xap file was created with a version of XACT that is incompatible with the XNA Framework Content Pipeline version used by this project” error message can occur, so the above workaround may not successfully resolve this error in all cases.

Here are some of the possible configurations where this error will occur:

• Attempting to compile an XNA Game Studio 3.1 project that includes an XACT2 project
  
  This is the scenario that the workaround above applies to
  
  
• Attempting to compile an XNA Game Studio 3.0 project that includes an XACT3 project
  
  This is the inverse of the above scenario. You need to create a new version of your XACT project using the tool included with XNA Game Studio 3.1 at the following location on the start menu:  All Programs | Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.1 | Tools | Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool 2 (XACT2).
  
  
• Attempting to compile an XNA Game Studio 3.0 or 3.1 project that includes an XACT project created with a version of the XACT tool other than the ones that ship with XNA Game Studio 3.1 (for example, the version of XACT in the DirectX SDK)
  
  This is similar to both of the above scenarios.  If you’re using an XNA Game Studio 3.1 project, you need to make sure the XACT project is saved in the format of the version of XACT3 that ships with XNA Game Studio 3.1.  If you’re using an XNA Game Studio 3.0 project, you need to make sure the XACT project is saved in the format of the version of XACT2 that ships with XNA Game Studio 3.0 and 3.1.