Good XNA / C # books?

Hiya guys,

This is for any one investigating C# and XNA, have you found any really good books or tutorial websites for this combination?

Here's a couple of books I have come across:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Xna-Unleashed-Graphics-Programming/dp/0672329646/ref=sr_1_4/202-9657095-7314212?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194942497&sr=1-4


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-XNA-Game-Programming-Professional/dp/1590599241/ref=sr_1_2/202-9657095-7314212?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194942497&sr=1-2


These seem preety good, especially the top book - I may purchase the top one, so if anyone has seen it or has it can they let me know if it is any good please?

Thanks,

IPete2.

I have been looking at XNA. To be honest, if you know C you should be fine with C#. It took me a couple of days to get my head around the way it sets stuff out but after that I have been flying through. Most of the stuff you need to know is just a Google away. I have no C# or XNA books but the internet hasn't let me down yet when I have been stuck.

In fact I am enjoying it so much I blew £60 on the Creators Club subscription. My code worked on the 360 without changing a single line.

Big&,

Ok that's great to know thanks.

Have you followed the quest of TorpeX to get their game "Schizoids" onto XBOX 360 - there's some webcasts from Gamefest 2007 on the MSoft webcast website.

The reason I ask is that there appears to be some serious considerations when moving code from Windows to XBOX360, even though ported code works, the bottlenecks which can occur with games are quickly apparently and quite evident on XBOX360 unless you plan for them. By that I mean using multi-threading and the fact that the CLR is different (quite cut down on XBOX 360 compared to Windows).

My ambition is to get a 360 soon and begin moving my work in that direction.
IPete2.

Nope.

But csharpcorner.com and codeproject.com are the best sites for general C# stuff.

But like Big& said, Google rarely lets you down when you're stuck. Unlike say MSDN.

Thanks Flameduck

IPete2:
Yes, I saw those webcasts and they where dead interesting. I suppose its like most things, if you tend not to plan stuff and just wing it, things can come back to haunt you. And I guess they where in very unknown teritory.

I am on my second project at the moment and the difference in code from the first to second project is astonishing. Its just getting used to a new environment and language. To be honest, I doubt the stuff I will do will ever push the 360 as I like to do remakes of old 2D games but its a great personal boost to see your things running on the console.

Hey Big&,

I am hoping to purchase a 360 soon, and then join the creators club so if I get anywhere I'll be able to send you stuff to laugh at, er I mean enjoy... lol

IPete2.

From our dive into XNA and C# we found you were considerably limited (as in hands tied) with network operations on the x360. With windows it isn't an issue as you use the system.network namespace however there is no network support in XNA for x360 yet, which turned me off to xna all together (nice for windows, but still a bit bloated and new at this point).

Just my 2 cents from the exploration I did with it. Other than that the language is lovely!

DH,

You will be thrilled to learn (unless you already knew that is) that the refresh which is about to happen to version Game Studio 2.0 will indeed included xbox 360 Newtork capability, along with a lot (and I mean a lot) of other issues solved. It will still need some graft to be running high end stuff from Windows to Xbox 360 but there are numerous changes and additions to cope with those things.

Check out the Gamefest webcasts 2007 and the announcements of the refresh 2.0 coming (hopefully) in December 2007 - should be what we have all been waiting for.

Also another place I re-found http://www.xnatutoial.com some excellent step by step videos regarding C# and XNA.

IPete2.

xna/c# looks great but im nor sure how useful it is for small games; It takes ages to install .net framework. I dont know what MS are doing but framework could be the slowest install ever.

aaaand once it's installed it's installed. And you don't have to do it again. So no biggie.

(but it IS ridiculous how much time it takes to install)

I read that .NET Framework 3.5 is supposed to be out this month. What happened to 3.0? I'm still on 2.0! :)

> What happened to 3.0?

3.0 has been out since last year-ish.

Doh! I'm surprised Windows Update didn't inform me, but oh well - I haven't needed it so far!

It did
But .NET 3.0 is an optional install and it is XP SP2 and higher only