Tom Miller's Blog : ManagedDX

Managed Games? Of course!

tmiller — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 22:28:00 GMT

You may remember me talking about Koios Works before. They wrote one of the first retail games using Managed DirectX. They have an entirely new 3D game out now called Panzer Command: Operation Winterstorm

Not only are they still using Managed DirectX and having a full 3d game going, they won first prize in a contest sponsored by Intel with a nice chunk of change reward!

I wonder if and when they'll be moving over the Xna Game Studio Express? =)

Have you seen the XNA Team Blog?

tmiller — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 04:20:00 GMT

In one of my posts yesterday I linked to it, but it is a good blog to read. I really enjoyed the little bit of extra information from Boyd in today's post.

So you wanna be a game developer?

tmiller — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:33:00 GMT

(I'm gonna copy/paste since i'm in a lazy mood)

Are you a hobby, casual or Indie game developer? If so, we're looking for participants in a usability study which will help us build better products and technologies to help serve your needs in this area.

Participation criteria:

You must have been actively involved in programming games within the past year.
You must be a student, hobbyist (meaning you develop games for fun), or Indie game developer. For this particular study we are not considering professional game developers who work at established studios unless you also develop games for fun outside of work.
For this particular study we are looking for participants who reside within 30 miles of Seattle, Washington.

Users who are interested in participating in the study and meet the criteria above should complete our short (5-10 minutes) survey here:

http://www.developersurvey.com/Surveys/TakeSurvey.aspx?s=F418DF772FE24D96A1A38F3BDCD4131A

Once we receive survey responses we will begin contacting the candidates if they meet our selection criteria.

Thanks!

According to Amazon, I had a new book come out this week!

tmiller — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:14:00 GMT

If the title didn't give it away, I regret to inform you that I didn't.

I'm sure everyone is aware that a long time ago I had signed up for writing a 3rd book.. A more "advanced" game programming book that took an already completed game I had written, disected it, and showed the techniques I used, etc. Once it became apparent to me that I wouldn't have the time for that, I left that project off in good hands with a co-worker and friend Rick.

Now, more recently I was asked about updating my quite popular Kickstart book with a second edition. The goal there being to add more content for the new API's, and update the book to the latest versions. At the time this was being discussed it was the early days of what would become MDX2, and I decided that should be the focus of this second edition.

So, both of these projects were designed to run with CLR2 and MDX2. As I'm sure everyone is aware now, MDX2 is evolving into the XNA Framework, which is delaying (yet again) each of these projects.

So, despite what Amazon says, to my knowledge there is no "new" Managed DirectX book coming out this week. Certainly not one from me. Plus, with the XNA Framework, a "Managed DirectX Kickstart" second edition doesn't seem as logical (second edition of a first run product?) so that seems likely to change as well..

Managed DirectX 2.0, Xna and Me...

tmiller — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 03:02:00 GMT

One of the Program Managers for the Xna Framework recently started his first blog. Unless you have the main RSS feed of this site subscribed, you probably didn't notice his first post, which talks about a lot.

You may have also seen the 'official' press release announcing the Xna Framework.

If you haven't read Al's post yet, I suggest you go do that first. It's ok, i'll wait for you to get done..

(Yup, i'm still waiting)

(You haven't forgotten about me have you?)

Great, you're back! Anyway, there's so much stuff I want to talk about and say, but I'm probably going to start rambling and forget mentioning things.. C'est la vie..

So anyways, like I mentioned last week, I've moved over to the XBox team and the Xna team specifically. If you're @ GDC this week, you might have the chance to see some of the demos we have written entirely in managed code running on both Windows as well as the XBox 360. People have been asking me for what seems like forever if there would be managed support for the Xbox, and I guess we've finally answered that.

Of course, i've also had people tell me numerous times over the last 3 to 4 years that it is essentially impossible to write a game in managed code. I have no idea why people think that, but obviously we disagree, and our demo's are starting to show that (even considering the early nature of the work we've done).

So what about MDX2 though? As I'm sure you're now aware (since you *did* go read Al's post), what is now called Managed DirectX 2 will be folded into the Xna Framework. The assembly itself will still ship (in non-release 'beta' form) until we are ready to ship a pre-release version of the Xna Framework, but in it's current form, it will never be officially "released."

We're working feverishly to get a preview of the Xna Framework out as soon as possible, and I'm quite excited about the work we're doing, and the excitement people will have when they see it. It's also quite refreshing to have an entire team supporting in these efforts.

I look forward to talking more about some of the exciting things we're doing in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

Busy busy busy!!

tmiller — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 21:23:00 GMT

Lots of changes been going on over here recently which have been keeping me quite busy (well, more busy than usual). I've recently switched groups over to the Xbox team (and the XNA team specifically), and I'm quite excited about the stuff we're working on.

Don't think this means I've "forgotten" about MDX though, believe me, I haven't. While i'm thinking about it though, it would be great if the people who are using MDX2 right now could contact me and give me some ideas on what you're working on, and when you hope to ship. I may not be able to get a chance to reply to everyone, but I'll read them all.

This is quite the 'exciting' (yet overwhelmingly busy) time for me.. Like I said a few blog posts ago, we're starting the revolution of managed code in gaming.

TrayGames..

tmiller — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:04:00 GMT

Joe from TrayGames contacted me earlier and apparently they have a public beta available now.

You can read more about it on Zman's site, or here.

Koios Works, at it again..

tmiller — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 01:13:00 GMT

So amongst the other mails I got today, i also got one from Marshall Belew from Koiois Works. You may remember them from my posts way back since they were one of the first commercial MDX games out.

I'm sure you can guess that since i'm blogging about it now, that game #3 is coming soon. It's called "Panzer Command: Operation Winterstorm" and the engine they've done has come a *long* way since the first Tin Soldiers game.. I'm quite impressed with the screenshots i've seen thus far.

You can see some of said screenshots in this forum post from Matrix Games (the publisher of the 3 games). There is also a public forum for the game here.

One of the best quotes I have from Marshall which pretty much sums up my feelings on MDX and managed code in gaming?

"We continue to be complemented by our peers in the industry for what we have accomplished with the time and budget of our games."

I posted about the first game they did in October 2004. It's now Feb 2006, a mere 17 months later, and not only have they published a second game, this is going to be the third. Big congrats to those guys. It's looking great.

More Academia using MDX?

tmiller — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:59:00 GMT

I got an email today from "Matthias" who did some MDX work last semester at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria.. The screenshots in the link he gave me look quite nice (apparently they took 2nd place in this years competition)..

It seems there are also some videos..

Good stuff!

February 2006 SDK Available..

tmiller — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:41:00 GMT

I'm always the last person to announce these things, but.. Hey.. Did you hear? The February SDK is out!

While the MDX2 assembly is still in beta form for this release, it's still pretty exciting for me currently. The time in which it will be in release mode is rapidly approaching, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm quite excited about the future.

For this release, there was more of the same as the last release. Missing functionality implemented (you can actually save your textures/surfaces again!) Bug fixes, performance improvements, the majority of the D3D samples were ported to MDX2 as well.

Obviously I can't promise anything right now, but we're hard at work trying to get this up to the quality required to be called "released", and I'm confident of our ability to get it done. Everyone's on board, the documentation is coming along nicely, and things are moving at a nice pace. I'm excited because it seems to me that soon, we'll be starting the revolution of managed code in gaming.

As always, please provide any feedback in the API you feel needs more polish. I believe David has been deleting/locking posts in the public forums on the beta, so make sure you post them in the beta newsgroups. I try to monitor that relatively often (and when I forget, David's there to remind me). I'd recommend getting any suggestions/comments/feedback/bugs/anything else in quickly though. Time's a-tickin!

Haddd 3D

tmiller — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 01:03:00 GMT

Rather than just copy and paste the stuff that ZMan already wrote, i'll just link directly to his post.

Book Source Code..

tmiller — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 01:05:00 GMT

I think I blogged about this once before. If I did, I don't remember when and can't find it. Since there have been a number of questions on the topic though, I'll post this again, even if it is a duplicate.

ZMan has already done the 'work' for getting the source code from my two books to compile with the latest SDK's. While it's true it's not an 'official' source of these updates, it seems like a perfectly good way to check out the updates without having to go through the pain of fixing the compiler errors due to API changes.

You can find the kickstart source here, and the beginners book source here.

Thanks to ZMan for the updates!!

Managed DirectX - It's not just games..

tmiller — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 01:30:00 GMT

So here at Microsoft, we have this thing called a 'buddy program' which you can read more about at http://msdn.microsoft.com/isv/isvbuddy/. I'm signed up for this program and have a 'buddy' who works for a company (I assume in Germany) doing Managed DirectX work (amongst other things). (Sorry, I only have time for one ISV buddy, so don't go signing up hoping to get assigned me unfortunately).

Anyway, my buddy has sent me a link of some of the things they've been working on using MDX:

http://www.die.de/faltwerk/xfalt/overview/arbeitsfenster_uebersicht.html

The site itself is in German, so if you don't speak that, google's translater seems to do an adequate job. The third video is the most relevant to MDX.

MDXInfo

tmiller — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 04:36:00 GMT

Just was shown a new website dedicated to MDX Info, called (strangely enough) http://www.mdxinfo.com/

New, but looks like a nice little start.

Probably not quite what he intended..

tmiller — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 03:13:00 GMT

I got an email recently from Phil Vaira about a new RPG he was working on.. So, like I normally do, I went and checked out the link. What I found though was a new post detailing his 'advice' on native DX vs Managed DX. Naturally, I read that as well. What i've found is that it contains many misconceptions that seem to have been perpetuated throughout the last few years.

I agree with his sentiment that you use the right tool for the job. It is (or should be) a no-brainer, but that goes well beyond game development, or even software development. That should just be a 'given' in any facet of life. I don't agree with his implication that if you want game development to be a career you should stick to native code (while he didn't directly say that, it was the implication I read with his 'beneficial in the future' comment). The fact is, a large number of 'professional' game developers began their 'career' as a tools developer for a 'real game'. Care to guess what a large number of tools are written in?

He then goes on to 'compare' native Directx and Managed DirectX by using Call of Duty 2 (a brand new PC game) and Arena Wars (which doesn't even use DirectX, much less Managed DirectX). Now, the comparison here is wrong in so many ways, it's hard to count. First, the API's aren't even the same, which seems relatively important for comparing.. you know.. the APIs. Second, he's comparing a brand new game with one a couple years old. Newer games invariably 'look better' as developers 'mature'. Thirdly, he's comparing a game that has a multi-million dollar budget and a dedicated team of artists against one that was essentially done by a couple hobbyists (with no offense made to any hobbyists). Lastly, he's taken the assumption that because the one "looks better" it must "be better". Call of Duty 2 is a good game, I agree with that, but you know a game I think is better? Katamari Damacy.. Find screenshots and I think most people will agree Call of Duty 2 "looks better", but 'looks' doesn't always mean better.

He then uses these assumptions to ascertain that Managed DirectX simply isn't capable of creating something so 'visually stunning'. No basis for this conclusion other than the fact that he hasn't seen it done. He hasn't seen a managed version of Call of Duty 2. He then goes and mentions other games that have been released in the past, wondering why he's never seen managed versions of those (nevermind the fact that Managed DX didn't even *exist* when those games started development). It should be plainly obvious that no development company who wants to make money would 'waste' so much resources by simultaneously developing two versions of their game *for the same platform*. I also got a kick out of how he lets everyone know that you couldn't make Morrowind in managed because "can't get FPS where it should be" which implies that a) there is/was a managed version of Morrowind somewhere (how else would they know that) and b) he was involved in the development of that version. Since I know a) isn't true, i can infer that b) isn't as well.

So anyway. For my conclusion, I'm not going to give any 'advice' on which is better. Both native and managed versions of our API are fully capable of developing 'modern' games. Both versions have pros and cons, and I agree with him that you should weigh these before making any decisions. For myself? I'd be happier if the majority of developers concentrated on making *good* games rather than 'pretty' games.. Regardless of what API they use.

BTW: I've been (am on) vacation for the holidays. Thus my lack of activity here (even though there will be a series of posts today).