Multithreading in XNA

XNA Game Studio Express

- Previous
  - 1
    - 56k download Just wondering if there's a split up version of the DirectX sdk for 56k users, or something similar. Thanks, BmB Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 2
    - Who is using XACT? We would use it, if some compression that sounded better, and compressed more, than MS-ADPCM was available. WMA will do in a pinch; user-supplied decompression would be even better (we prefer OGG/Vorbis for various reasons). As it is, this is actually a deal killer (we're content size sensitive). Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 3
    - Model scaling without effecting the real coords Hi, when I load my models they don't always have the correct size in relation to each other, so i want to scale them. When i multiply the world matrix of the basic-effect that renders the model with a Matrix.CreateScale(0.2f) matrix i get the visual correct result. But the coords are scaled too. So when i want to set the position of my model i need to multiply the x, y and z coords by 5 to get the correct values for the model world matrix. Does anyone have an idea to only scale the model in visual I already tried to multiply the view and/or projection matrices with a Matrix.CreateScale(0.2f) matrix but I only got crapy results... at least I am not very familiar with matrices Thx & bye Thunder2002 Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 4
    - size in the 3D space i have 2 question 1.iam confuse how to correctly match the size of image (ex: *.tga 256x256) to the 3D space when we using CustomVertex.PositionTextured, how can we render the actual size of image in the 3D space 2. ex: void OnCreateBuffer(object sender, EventArgs e) { VertexBuffer buffer = (VertexBuffer)sender; positionTex = new CustomVertex.PositionTextured[4]; positionTex[0].Position = new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 0); positionTex[0].Tu = 0; positionTex[0].Tv = 0; positionTex[1].Position = new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 0); positionTex[1].Tu = 1.0f; positionTex[1].Tv = 0; positionTex[2].Position = new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 0); positionTex[2].Tu = 0.0f; positionTex[2].Tv = 1.0f; positionTex[3].Position = new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 0); positionTex[3].Tu = 1.0f; positionTex[3].Tv = 1.0f; buffer.SetData(positionTex, 0, LockFlags.None); } this buffer will create polygon wiht the width =2 n height =2; so what the meaning is 2 in width n height, 2 pixel or 2 inch or.. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 5
    - Resource management Hi, I was wondering if loadGraphicsContent can ever be called with loadAllContent=true except the very first time. The reason it's an important issue is that if it can, references can go dead, ex. if I load effect in Game1 and give it to object X, then Game1.loadGraphicsContent(true) is called and I have to reload effect, X's reference to effect is no longer any good. This can be solved with some simple indirection, but it would be nicer not to do that if it isn't necessary. I'm also curious if it's ever necessary to explicitly Dispose() a resource, such as a VertexBuffer, if it is created with ResourceManagementMode.Automatic, or if everything will be taken care of when it is garbage collected. Part of my concern is that I had a huge problem with MDX9 where such objects were not getting garbage collected because they had captured some device events which kept them live even after my code no longer had any direct reference to them. Is there anything like that going on here Thanks, Max Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 6
    - Future of DirectX My point is that people complained about DirectMusic, DirectShow, DirectDraw, DirectPlay in exactly the same way as you did. In fact there are still plenty of folk out there who would love DirectDraw to be supported and part of the API. There is also actually no repalcement way for doing the things DirectMusic did unless you go and buy a 3rd party library or write it yourself - DirectMusic was not a way to play sounds like DirectSound. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp url=/archive/en-us/directx9_c/directx/htm/introductiontodirectmusic.asp I certainly didn't intend to imply that you were not writing a game, just that Microsoft responds most to large publishers. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 7
    - PIX, DX10 and Render to Texture no crash, actually pix stops recording on: GetD3DDevice()->OMGetRenderTargets( 1, &mOrigRTV, &mOrigDSV ); > debug validation layer turned on device is created with D3D10_CREATE_DEVICE_DEBUG flag > and made sure it doesn't spew about problems with API usage this might explain it: D3D10: WARNING: ID3D10Device::OMSetRenderTargets: Resource being set to OM RenderTarget slot 0 is still bound on input! [ STATE_SETTING WARNING #9: DEVICE_OMSETRENDERTARGETS_HAZARD ] D3D10: WARNING: ID3D10Device::OMSetRenderTargets: Forcing PS shader resource slot 0 to NULL. [ STATE_SETTING WARNING #7: DEVICE_PSSETSHADERRESOURCES_HAZARD ] here is the code snippet it complains about: void DX10RenderTexture::BindTarget(int index, bool clear, int flags) { // Store off original render targets mDevice->GetD3DDevice()->OMGetRenderTargets( 1, &mOrigRTV, &mOrigDSV ); ID3D10RenderTargetView* aRTViews[1] = { 0 }; if (flags & RTF_Colour) aRTViews[0] = mRenderTargetView; mDevice->GetD3DDevice()->OMSetRenderTargets(1, aRTViews, (flags & RTF_Depth) mDepthStencilView : 0); if (clear) { mDevice->GetD3DDevice()->ClearRenderTargetView(mRenderTargetView, (float*)&mClearColour); mDevice->GetD3DDevice()->ClearDepthStencilView(mDepthStencilView, D3D10_CLEAR_DEPTH, 1.0f, 0); } } the warning pops up when BindTexture is called for the second time in the frame, not sure what the warning means but it probably is my problem i guess Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 8
    - Ortho-picking How is picking in an orthogonal projection supposed to be done The pick example from the sdk works only in PerspectiveFov projection, but not in Ortho projection. It seems to be all in the calculation of the pick-ray vector, but I can't find out how to set it :/ Tnx! Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 9
    - Collision Detection With Bezier Curves As I was saying a bouncing algorithm wouldn't be difficult to implement, I created one that could work: (lineNormal - playerDirection) * 2 + playerDirection With lineNormal being the normal of the terrain line. So I don't think bouncing is too much of an issue. What my problem is is that the only way to tell if the player has collided is to test for line intersection between the player and the terrain. But by the time an intersection happens, the player has penetrated the terrain. Before I draw the position of the player on the screen I need to calculate where the player should be so it looks like they never penetrated the terrain. Then after I have corrected the position of the player I can bounce them off the terrain. I'm not sure of an algorithm to calculate this new position. By the way I am using Verlet integration in the game but that shouldn't really affect the collision detection method. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 10
    - How to publish for Computers without XNA? It's still not enough: the xna framework redistributable seems not to have the content pipeline. I really don't know why, I hope that the april release fixes this...Is someone more uptdated than me about this Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 11
    - XNA project hard freezes XBOX360 Adam Hines wrote: In regards to setting breakpoints, it happens mostly in release mode, and specifically if the debugger is not attached. If i run the game from the XNA launcher it will freeze within a second if i don't exit the menu (the only part using bitmap font) Hopefully that will provide some more insight into the problem, does anyone at MS know if there are any plans for an XNA update anytime soon Sounds like a timing issue like some sort of race condition. Are you (or the 3rd party components) using multiple threads Maybe multiple threads trying to access the graphics routines at the same time I would strip out components 1 by 1 until I can narrow down the problem. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 12
    - Tiling textures I have a .x mesh exported from 3ds (3D studio max). In 3ds, the texture for my floor is tiled, and looks nice and detailed. However, when I load this mesh into my DirectX application, the texture is tiled, but is stretched to the size of the face... so now it looks like gravel instead of carpet! Can DirectX control how textures are tiled I cant seem to find anything. So far I have turned on Anisotropic texture filter which has made a slight improvement... but the tiles are still streched! Any ideas Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 13
    - Tell us about your website or game! Would my entry in the Xbox 360 Homebrew competition count Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 14
    - PC project -> 360 (including Game Library) Okay, I think I managed to figure out what you were talking about. Here's what I currently have, I'll play around with consolidating things a little more but this is working: A Windows Game Library that has all my engine code and content/importer/processor code An XBOX Game Library that has just the engine code, no content code. An XBOX Game that includes the .dll generated by the Windows Game Library in the content pipeline and references the Xbox Game Library to include the engine code. This atleast compiles and tries to run. Now I have an error about not being able to find content from a relative path so I'll be playing around a bit more before I call it a success. -Javier *Okay, scratch that. I can't see my custom importers at all. They don't show up in the list of Content Importer or Content Processor under the content properties. Clearly not accepting my library dll as a content processor. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 15
    - membership? important!! Moving to the XNA Framework Groups Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 16
    - I need help displaying text in an XNA game Ok I think I sort of got if I have any questions I will post them here. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
- Next
  - 1
    - Multiuser games? I realize that XNA currently doesn't have mog support, but has anyone used the .NET framework, specifically C#, to program mog's or other realtime multiuser environments -- links to examples, if so, please! Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 2
    - how to delete the threats? As a general guideline if you want high performing code you should multithread. You'd be stupid not to! Of course there is a steep learning curve, but it is something well worth learning to do right. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 3
    - XNA Architectu "push" vs. "pull" model It's funny... all these posts that mention console games and none that states the simplest truth: console games almost never use any keyboard input. Still, XNA was meant for developing Windows games as well. To this end, my own disappointment was that they only support XBox controllers. On the subject of pushing vs. pulling, though... the pulling method is really a lot more convenient for ordinary game control. If a key or button is down, then you do something, and if it isn't, then you don't. In a pull model, this can be done with a simple if statement. In a push model, you have to look for a down event, set a flag, check the flag where your action occurs, and then clear the flag when the up event occurs. That is the real reason consle style games tend to use a push model rather than a pull model. The pull model, as someone suggested, isn't that much faster. In fact, it can be slower depending on how its organized and used. It's also much easier to reverse the pull model than it is to reverse the push model. And, for those cases where a mixed model is needed, creating your own event model will let us, the game developers, decide how to coordinate the two, rather than having it dictated by the framework. This is particularly relevant since, in games, you generally develop your own user interface system. On that last, many game engines include an interface system, but XNA is more of an API than a game engine. And that's not a bad thing; game engines are built on top of API's. Also, API's provide the foundation for a much broader range of games than a game engine will. Do we really want Microsoft producing an engine that, say, was only really good for creating first person shooters, arcade style games, or whatever else In any case, something such as an event model (for a push system) really belongs in that intermediate level of "engine" where we begin to determine how the system will really work. Anyways, that's my two cents... Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 4
    - First-Person Shooter Game I have three question. How do I make a first-person shooter camera. How to make bullet particle effects. How to make the person throw the grenade. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 5
    - Clipping Layered Sprites (UI Related) I don't think it really makes sense to change renderstates like the scissor in the middle of a single sprite batch. The whole logic of batching up sprites is to gather many individual draws into a single GPU call, for faster rendering. This is exactly what the begin/end grouping is for. But when all the sprites are in a single GPU call, there is obviously no way to draw half of them with one render state, then the rest with a different state! That's not how the GPU works. So really, there's no option but to end one batch and start another when you want to change renderstates. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 6
    - How to get XNA Game Studio for VS2005 Team Suite Edition???? ProfEclipse wrote: 1. Why XGSE currently only supports C# Express. ... 3. That the GSPro version will work with non-Express studios. Well, the "official" reasoning behind one is that they ran out of time, and they would want us to be able to dev on xbox asap. That is fine and I understand perfectly. Now if they say, MS don't want to support VS2005 Pro with XGSExpress because they want us to buy XGS Pro. To me, that is approaching bait-n-switch since: 1. there is no official feature list for XGSE 2. Pro at this point is vapor-ware, and lots of things were "promised"/hinted before Pro came into the picture I don't know about you, but I would be miffed if I have to pay more money to use a tool (VS2005Pro) that I already paid for. Judging from MS Connect and how this topic comes up every few days, it is one of the most requested-feature/complaints. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 7
    - New XNA wargame : StrikeZone Nice progress! Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 8
    - Shader states, etc? (HLSL effects not working right) If you are relying on tangent/binormal data, are you sure it's in the vertex format your model is using Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 9
    - 3rd Series of 3D XNA Tutorials finished: HLSL intro Sorry about the delay, it's been quite busy at work lately ;) Anyway; thanks for the replies! @cairnswm: splitting the project up into a few classes would only be a logic thing to do. But, I keep as primary rule of my tuts to keep all code in 1 file (ok, 2 in the case of a HLSL tut). First, It's pretty time-consuming to open a tutorial project, and you have to find all classes in the separate files. Two, and most important: you have to know what classes are! And I would like to keep my tuts understandable for the broadest possible audience. Textured terrain, as I show in this thread It contains a preliminary screenshot of Series4, I coded it in the last week before the release of XNA final, so it is XNA final-compatible. I could already chop it up into chapters, but I want to add a few more things first. @fluxtah: I remember I kept on expanding the explanation of the vertex format, as it actually is the glue between the XNA and HLSL code. If you feel something should be added, let me know!! @Ely: Hope you had some fun, I'll try to find some time to finish that 4th series ;) Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 10
    - The Unofficial "Hooray I'm Done With my DBP Game" Thread I just submitted mine. Unfortunately, it has a couple of glaring problems. I considered not submitting it, but decided I'd worked to hard over the past week to not at least enter it. I'll post an updated version for the community over on gameprojects.com within a week or so. Tom Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 11
    - What does creators club include right now? Whose going to pay the developers Microsoft of course - thats who they work for :) If you *bothered* to read my previous post you would see that I did not say everything should be free and I said that I do not object to the Creators Club not being free - I just found it odd that all the other components of XNA are free (ie the main tools) and yet the creators club isn't - particularly when there is not much incentive to pay for the creators club yet. Microsoft would be far wiser to make the creators club free now and instead charge developers small amounts for downloadable content for XNA - just like they charge for downloadable content for games. As it stands in its current form there is zero incentive for me to join the creators club. Lets see - I want to try my program out on the XBOX - hmm that'll be $99 please! I don't think so. Of course there is a tonne of content "out there" - but it's not part of the creators club and I can already get that for free (or pay for it) - but based on the description of what the Creators club is supposed to be - its worded like there will be additional or new content available when clearly there isn't at this time. Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 12
    - Show off your website and/or game! I sent my info, but never saw any result... :( Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 13
    - Intermittent Audio Problem Hi, I've been developping a game recently and I'm having major trouble sith sound. I am pretty much using the code from the XNA Framework audio sample. So I can't imagine what's wrong with that code. The problem is that I'm getting intermittent clips being played. Some don't even play at all when I call the Sound.Play method, some play but stop before the end on the clip, sometimes they play fully. This does not happen rarely, I'd say this is about 50% of the time and more often on longer clips. The only one sound I've got that seems to play correctly is a clip that I am looping (alarm sound), which is of lower quality 8KHz vs 44.1KHz for the other ones. So that's basically it, I'm using XACT V2.0. I tried following the instructions as well as I could. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Nic Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 14
    - Someone Please Help Me!!! im new to xna development, im just starting, and i was wondering what some good 3d modelers were, if they're easy, and a good sound editor thats free and easy to use. If anyone could help i would appreciate it Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 15
    - Problems with creating a PNG texture from a resourcefile Hello guys and girls. I'm having a problem with the Direct3D function "D3DXCreateTextureFromResource". First I want to say, I'm new to DirectX and also to C++. I'm using the newest DirectX SDK, DirectX 9 on Windows XP and my IDE is Microsoft Visual Studio. I'm using this little piece of code to load a texture: HRESULT hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromResource(device, NULL, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDR_IMAGES1), &texture); if (FAILED(hr)) MessageBox(NULL, DXGetErrorString(hr), L "Error" , MB_OK | MB_ICONEXCLAMATION); When IDR_IMAGES1 is a bitmap, then it works just fine, then I don't get an error. But when it's a a PNG graphic, then I always get the error 'D3DXERR_INVALIDDATA'. I'm adding the pictures, by going to the Resource View of MSVS, right clicking and choosing "Add Resource", there I'm clicking on Import, selecting my PNG file and clicking Open. Then I have to enter a Resource Type where I usually enter "Images". Another thing is, when I try adding a JPG file the way like I wrote up there, MSVS shows me the error: "Filename is not a valid ��img file.". Well, Filename is of course the filename, and the squares aren't filled in. Can someone help me with my problem No One Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.
  - 16
    - I want to use a simple fx shader on a simple loaded model Yes, this absolutely does work! Big big big big thanks!!! Tag: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA Game Technologies: DirectX, XNA, XACT, etc.

Paul Burg

Is there any way to implememt multi-threaded programming into a XNA based game As multi-core processors become more prevalent, the ability to take advantage of that would be rather useful. Does XNA implement multi-threaded design behind the scenes, a.k.a. in the fundamental way the Game class works

I was thinking that for my program, I have multiple GameComponent classes for which the update functions could be run in parrallel. Is there anyway to specify that I've looked up information on righting multi-threaded applications in C#, but I'm not sure if those approaches are compatible with the XNA game loop design (in fact I imagine they would not be).

Re: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA

XNA-Mordt

It certainely is possible. Have a look at the .Net Threading Class articles.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.thread.aspx

Re: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA

Peter D.

Don't forget to also set the thread affinity or it will run on the same processor as your main process. Joel's post below is correct of course. The thread affinity is ignored on a PC due to windows deciding which thread runs on which processor. This is logical because windows may have one or more programs and processes running and each one runs in it's own thread. The 360 runs the kernel and your games and that's it so it uses a couple of threads for itself and leaves 4 free for games to use.

Re: XNA Game Studio Express Multithreading in XNA

Joel Martinez

I believe the thread affinity setting only works on the xbox 360 ... on windows you've got to rely on the OS to distribute the workload.