Datasheet

Another notable feature in XNA 2.0 is the ability to use XNA inside a window control, which is useful
for level editors such as the Dungeon Quest Editor discussed at the very end of this book. The Input
classes in XNA now support more devices like the Chatpad, the Big button pad, guitars, drums, or flight
sticks. See Chapter 10 for more information.
Last but not least, there are improvements to the Audio framework, too, which are discussed in Chapter 9.
XNA 2.0 features better cue management and a new and easier XACT editor, which is important to create
and manage sound effect files in XNA.
Other changes to the XNA Framework will be mentioned when they are relevant to the discussion in the
book, such as the Content Pipeline, which is a little bit simpler to use in XNA 2.0. You can more easily
load and unload assets, and you no longer have to handle device loss or device reset events. To get the
most recent version of the source codes for the samples in this book go to the official book site or
XnaProjects.net.
Troubleshooting
You have now read everything you need to know to get started with your first XNA project. If you just
read through this chapter, I highly recommend that you at least open up the project for this chapter
(download it from
www.wrox.com/WileyCDA/WroxTitle/productCd-0470126779.html) and run it.
If you run into problems installing DirectX, .NET 2.0, or XNA, try to search for help on the XNA Forums
at
http://forums.xna.com/. If the tips in this book do not help you with a particular problem you
should always do a Google search and check out the XNA Forums. This way you can get more current
help about some problems. For .NET 2.0 it is important that you have the most recent service pack for
your operating system. For DirectX make sure you have the most recent graphics driver and a decent
graphics card to even work on 3D graphics. Finally, for XNA, make sure you have everything correctly
installed before starting the XNA setup.
Getting XNA to work on Windows isn’t very hard. On the Xbox 360, a lot of things can go wrong. Here
are a couple of tips to make sure you meet the requirements for running XNA games on your 360:
❑ You need an Xbox 360 Live Account on your Xbox 360, which must be connected at all times
when you develop and test your XNA games.
❑ Make sure your PC and the Xbox 360 are on the same network and that they can “see” each
other. You can test ping-ing the Xbox 360 IP from your PC or connecting to your PC as a media
center from the Xbox 360.
❑ If the Xbox 360 XNA Framework could not be installed, search for more help on the Internet to
see if your Xbox 360 meets the minimum requirements (you need a hard disk, for example).
❑ When you create an encryption key in Settings of the XNA Game Launcher and it is not
accepted by your PC because you maybe mistyped it or it contained 0 (the number zero) and
O letters, which almost look the same, just try it again; you can always create a new encryption
key. See the section “Configuring Your Xbox 360” earlier in this chapter for details.
❑ If the XNA Game Launcher does not start, or all buttons are grayed out, or if you receive some
error like 0xffffffff, it means that your profile is not connected to Xbox Live or it has some wrong
settings. If you had an older version of the XNA Framework installed before, uninstall it, delete
your profile, and create a new profile and reinstall the XNA Framework again.
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