hey,

iam a proammer since ~ 2 years and i know c# java and lua and i want to create a game. I know there are plenty of "free" game engines out like unity ureal and cryengine3.

But I have a very special game idea in my head and i have plenty of time to realize this idea.

the problem is that i have to adjust my gameidea because some conecepts are not 100% implementable in the these 3 engines. What isnt a big problem.

So...
i just found XNA. so what is xna?

i already know its a framework. but what does this mean ?
what is in the framework ? ( drawing , lightning , physics, ai ).

Are there limits , if yes what are these limits ?

I also read that its very complicated to create a 3d games , they said XNA should be only used for 2d games , is this statement true ?

what about the perfomance of this framework ?

is XNA capable of directx 9 , 10 or 11 ?

i know there are other frameworks like ... hmm ANX ( http://anxframework.codeplex.com/ ). what alternatives do i have ? And why should i use XNA


i know that are a buch of questions, but i couldnt find an answer to them.

thanks.

It's pretty much a .NET wrapper around DirectX 9 that also runs on the 360 and with stripped down versions for windows phone and zunes. That's not entirely accurate though, for example you get some very basic and common things for free such as game loop, initialization, content loading and more. Performance is pretty good in most cases.

ANX is a potential replacement framework for XNA that's in development.

~Not a programmer~

As an example of its capabilities, I found this game that uses XNA. The game is called "Bloodline Champions". Do a search.

Also, I think most Xbox 360 downloadable games on its network are made using XNA or only made with XNA as its framework.

i want to create a beautiful looking FPS shooter and i have plenty of time to create it.

Would you say that if i invest lots of time i could get a really good looking game (engine?). I dont mean the graphic provied by the assets from the designers, more like realtime lightning , realtime GI , images based reflections etc.


Will ms update XNA to provide dx11 features ?

I just dont want to waste my time.

i thought of starting with 3d buz XNA 101 and if they wont provide dx11 support i can easily swap to ANX http://anxframework.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=HowTo%2fConvertXna&referringTitle=Documentation

because it provides openGL 4.2 and dx11 and the proejcts can be easily converted.

well thats my plan atm

you'll get much better results from modding an existing an existing engine than starring from scratch. building an fps from scra
tch is a big feat with any toolset, xna includeD

Will ms update XNA to provide dx11 features ?[/quote]
I suppose if the new XboX generation supports DX11, Microsoft would update XNA to support that code path, but it may be in a totally different version of XNA (i.e. XNA 5 or something) and the API would probably be very different to the one now to reflect the major overhaul between DX9 and DX10. But that's not exactly in the near future.

okay XNA looks pretty interesting

i think i start with

http://www.3dbuzz.co...uctid=79&ref=12

i would love to read some books / guides around 3d application , like lightning system physics etc.

what would you recommend me to watch / read ?

edit:

http://www.amazon.co...32708061&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Studio-Creators-Second-Edition/dp/0071614060/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1332708061&sr=8-3
these books sound quite interesting

Will ms update XNA to provide dx11 features ?

No. The reason is that the XBox 360 is not upgradable to versions 10 or 11, and XNA must work on the XBox 360, so it will not progress to DX11.

I read a blog post about why they changed so much in XNA4 by someone on the XNA team, and I seem to recall reading something like "this will also make it easier create a DX11 version". The meaning of that statement wasn't very clear though, it's possible he was just referring to upgrading the underlying library to DX11 on windows, meaning potentially better performance but still no access to DX10+ features.

My unprofessional suggestion would be to look at WinRT(is it?), the new set of API's that Microsoft is working on for Windows 8 and Metro style apps.
My guess would be that that would seem something that MS would push for there next console for ''Indie'' games and such. Plus, tablets and PC's.
And it all runs on the hardware with DirectX11+. You can use C#,Javascript and C++. Seems like a great option. If you plan on going Windows only, like XNA.