XNA is being killed off

[derekmorton]

Microsoft XNA officially dead

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/14...onger-evolving

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...p#.URA_fqXC3zE

[seagoon]

Well, not exactly "killed off" in the strict sense of the term, Derek.
MS have stated that it will continue to be supported but will not continue to evolve.
And there's a year or more to run until the farewell.

Bruce

[conrail1]

To answer mipman25’s question -

Doesn't Open Rails use XNA? If so, what will become of OR?

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?313197-Microsoft-XNA-officially-dead

OpenRails uses XNA and from what I understand it was also used to develop RS/RailWorks/TS2013.

What it means is no more future versions of the XNA development toolset and no use of DirectX 11 features unless of course you’re a game developer proficient in using the DirectX SDK (which I guess if you were you wouldn’t be using XNA to begin with).

http://indiegames.com/2013/02/its_official_xna_is_dead.html

[muskokaandtahoe]

It's been apparent for some time that .XNA wasn't getting much attention from MS. Alternatives like SharpDX could be part of a longer term solution.

IMO the real issue is Win 8/Metro, not .XNA. Metro is to Windows what Windows was to DOS: Completely different. I suspect it'll take another year or two for things to shake out: Did MS take a gut-shot with Metro or only blow away a toe or two? How long will it take for Metro / MS policies become accepted by game developers? Will game developers even care what MS does for the next couple of years given all the smart money is betting on smart phone and tablet games right now?

At any rate MSTS is 12 years old and we're still using it. I'm not going to worry too much about .XNA's demise any time soon.

[geepster775]

This is from an article in Oct 2012.

http://www.wpcentral.com/xna-dead-long-live-xna

In it, they mention this effort underway

MonoGame is an Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework. Our goal is to allow XNA developers on Xbox 360, Windows & Windows Phone to port their games to the iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux and Windows 8 Metro. PlayStation Mobile development is currently in progress.

"At a very high-level, what this wonderful bunch of people is doing is method-by-method recreating the XNA framework with compatibility for the aforementioned platforms. So they create an implementation of each thing that XNA does in each platform. To avoid legal issues, no code has been disassembled from Microsoft’s binaries."


Sound familiar?

[OTTODAD]

Whatever the ORTS team are using now to create it has to be compatible with future developments of Windows beyond WIN-8 and XNA not being supported by Microsoft to do that, having to use alternatives, will make their task even more difficult than what it is now !

O t t o

[conrail1]

It's been apparent for some time that .XNA wasn't getting much attention from MS. Alternatives like SharpDX could be part of a longer term solution.

IMO the real issue is Win 8/Metro, not .XNA. Metro is to Windows what Windows was to DOS: Completely different. I suspect it'll take another year or two for things to shake out: Did MS take a gut-shot with Metro or only blow away a toe or two? How long will it take for Metro / MS policies become accepted by game developers? Will game developers even care what MS does for the next couple of years given all the smart money is betting on smart phone and tablet games right now?

As far as Microsoft’s is concerned gaming belongs on XBOX not the PC and the big money game developers are using big money game engines (Crytek, Havok, Unity, etc.) so they could care less about XNA anyway.

Hopefully this will add to the attention that OpenGL has already been getting lately especially from Valve and the its new Steam box that’s supposedly going to run Linux –

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/hands-on-with-xi3s-piston-modular-pc-at-ces/

http://xi3.com/x7a-modular-computer.php

[rdamurphy]

"Has to be compatible with future developments of Windows"?

Hmmm, let me check my toolkit for my crystal ball. Can't seem to find it, perhaps someone can tell me the future of sofware and computer hardware develpment?

When MSTS was written for Win9x computers. Anyone with any knowledge of Windows OS's knows how incredibly different Win9x architechture is from WinVista/7 archetecture. Indeed, Windows 2000/XP moved the entire platform off of MSDOS dependency into the NT platform. The first beta of Win2000 was labeled "NT5.0Beta1". I have a copy.

Windows 7 doesn't even ship with MSDOS included. Yes. I know that it has a Command window. It's not MSDOS based. Try running a 16bit MSDOS program on the 64bit version.

I could spend an hour listing the games that were designed to work on the Win9x platform that WILL not work on the 2K+ platform, including most flight simulators. The Jane's series all "died", along with a ton of others, including one of my favorites, Battlezone.

We're extremely fortunate that MSTS works at all!

Will ORTS work on "future develpments of Windows" that we have no clue whatsoever what it will look like? Or will the PC itself, the entire x86/64bit Wintel platform become extinct?

Can't happen you say? OK. I'll send you a podcast to listen to on your 8-track or watch on your Beta player...

Robert

[seagoon]

.......it has to be compatible with future developments of Windows beyond WIN-8 and XNA not being supported by Microsoft to do that, ...

Dominique Louis of MonoGame, the Open Source implementation of the XNA Framework...........

The news isn't all bad. While XNA is officially dead as far as Microsoft is concerned, MonoGame will continue to support XNA developers going forward. XNA devs can continue using the same tools they already have and, thanks to its SharpDX backend, can even publish to Windows 8, which otherwise doesn't support XNA.

You really should spend a bit more time reading content rather than just the opening sentences, Otto.
(I'm reminded of shows like "60 Minutes" - an hour of sensationalism and media hype, mostly without substance.)

Bruce

[rdamurphy]

Well, to paraphrase: "Rumours of the death of OpenRails have been greatly exagerated!"

Robert

[conrail1]

Well, to paraphrase: "Rumours of the death of OpenRails have been greatly exagerated!"

Robert

I don’t think there was any talk of OpenRails dying but as mentioned around two years ago OR needs a real rendering/game engine or it will just end up like the rest of the crap we’ve seen over the last 10+ years which isn’t going to be easy for a volunteer project.

[rdamurphy]

No talk of OpenRails dying?

You might want to go back and read the title of the thread...

Yes, a new rendering/game engine would be nice. I think maybe we should let them finish it first, though. OTOH, I'd play a train game with little stick figure boxes with circles under them for wheels for trains if it had realistic physics and operations...

Robert

[seagoon]

Well, to paraphrase: "Rumours of the death of OpenRails have been greatly exagerated!"...

[seagoon]

....I'd play a train game with little stick figure boxes with circles under them for wheels for trains if it had realistic physics and operations...Robert

I used to do that with the Trainmaster sim(s).
'Twas the best thing since sliced bread, TM4.

Bruce

[conrail1]

No talk of OpenRails dying?

You might want to go back and read the title of the thread...

OK I did, where’s the part where OR is dying?

Yes, a new rendering/game engine would be nice. I think maybe we should let them finish it first, though.

Lol, it’s a good idea to get the game engine right before you go through the work of developing the rest of the program.

OTOH, I'd play a train game with little stick figure boxes with circles under them for wheels for trains if it had realistic physics and operations...

I wouldn’t and I don’t see much interest in little stick figure boxes with circles under them for wheels for trains, we’ve had that already with MSTS.