Windows 8 Metro Apps with DirectX rather than HTML
Monkey Forums/Monkey Programming/Windows 8 Metro Apps with DirectX rather than HTML
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| Mark, It's clear now that XNA for Windows 8 is not going to happen and there is two alternatives available - DirectX and HTML5. Been looking around and i've finally found some information which relates to Windows 8 Metro apps running DirectX (in c++). http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsappdev/archive/2012/03/15/combining-xaml-and-directx.aspx Is this something you may be able to consider as a Monkey target eventually? The Window 8 marketplace will (obviously) have a huge market going forward - it certainly is something to consider. [update] Discussion about which technologies are available http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh452780.aspx |
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| love the comments on that msdn thread. Microsoft is one screwed up beast of a company. |
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| I don't understand why they would kill XNA after all of the effort and great feedback. It definitely makes no sense at all. |
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| I would imagine cost has a big deal in this. |
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| @whyowhy I have a feeling they may eventually write a wrapper - there are mentions in relation to being able to doing such (3rd party,). |
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| Hi, I'm still a bit confused about the whole XNA-on-Windows 8 situation. Does this mean: XNA on Windows 8 doesn't exist at all? Or... XNA on Windows 8 can only produce WP7/XBOX apps, not desktop/metro/tablet apps? Or... XNA on Windows 8 can only produce desktop apps, not metro apps? Or.. XNA on Windows 8 can only produce desktop/x86 apps, not metro/arm/tablet apps? At the very least, GLFW apps run on Windows 8 and I'll be making sure that remains a viable fallback for starters. Beyond that, it really depends on how things pan out - ie: will the metro thing take off? Or, more precisely, will tablets that can only run metro take off? If so, and a whole new target is required to achieve this, then I'm in. But if not, and Windows 8 ends up being primarily a desktop with a freakin' hugely annoying start menu (my pick), and depending on what exactly 'no XNA on Windows 8' means, then...? I'll do more research, but the current situation is IMO very confusing! > I don't understand why they would kill XNA after all of the effort and great feedback. It definitely makes no sense at all. Same here - best thing they ever come up with and they seem determined to shoot it in the head! It's really hard to work out what they're thinking - if they want metro on tablets to take off, surely it makes sense to leverage existing/future WP7/XBOX apps/games? Would the iPad have done as well if iPhone devs hadn't been able to easily convert existing apps? I guess the other issue is whether or not windows 8 metro apps can be built for WP7? If so (surely!) then using DX for both metro and WP7 might make sense. But don't you need to be a well heeled uber-developer to be 'allowed' to use DX on WP7? If so, are they *really* expecting indie devs to write everything twice - once for WP7 in XNA, once for metro in DX?!? |
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| If so, are they *really* expecting indie devs to write everything twice - once for WP7 in XNA, once for metro in DX?!? Maybe indie devs are not in their plans.... |
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| XNA on Windows 8 doesn't exist at all? Or... XNA on Windows 8 can only produce WP7/XBOX apps, not desktop/metro/tablet apps? Or... XNA on Windows 8 can only produce desktop apps, not metro apps? Or.. XNA on Windows 8 can only produce desktop/x86 apps, not metro/arm/tablet apps? At the very least, GLFW apps run on Windows 8 and I'll be making sure that remains a viable fallback for starters. XNA/GLFW will continue to run (as it's backwards compatible) on the x86/x64 (not ARM) PCs + you will also continue to build XNA apps for Xbox/WP7. XNA is not available for Metro apps as it uses the new WinRT platform. WinRT is a re-design of the entire low-level systems used in Windows 8 allowing everything from C#/VB.Net to HTML5/CSS/Javascript and C++ to be used for Metro apps. For game specific apps, I feel that the DX platform will offer a better experience over HTML5. Personally I feel they may (eventually) provide a wrapper or some sort of upgrade path for XNA as there is a lot of grief around this decision currently. Also we still don't know where WP8 is going to sit in all of this - rumors suggest this will also be based on W8. I think this will be the first step to a new combined experience going forward - Windows powering desktops/laptops/tablets/phones/xbox with a consistant development environment for all. Putting some context around Windows 8 and the Metro platform, in just over 2 years Windows 7 has sold over 550 mil copies. Even assuming a smaller turnover to W8 you are looking at hundreds of millions of users plus a reasonable % on (ARM) tablets who will only have the W8 store to purchase from. Microsoft have already said they are going all out for their store to succeed (as it has for Apple). I feel the potential for W8 will not be clear until there are tablets around for people to get a real feel for the OS. If so, are they *really* expecting indie devs to write everything twice - once for WP7 in XNA, once for metro in DX?!? I guess (for us at least) this is the power of the Monkey platform - the potential pain is for Mark (or someone else) to decide to write a target to support it. Getting in early to support W8 metro may also be of benefit to Monkey itself - if it is more difficult to develop for then Monkey as a cross-platform tool is in the ball-game. It's just a pity that as open as Microsoft has been in the past they are now being very closed about their future. |
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| Lurking here. All question I have been thinking about. :) |
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| Yeah me to, seems a bit insane to. Of support it with monkey given how big it will be, evolve or die. As for xna, I was told their folding it into the windows api so we will still have it just under a new name I might have miss read tho. |
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| Microsoft consistently take one step forward and two backwards... in that regard I guess they could be seen as reliable.... |
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| Microsoft consistently take one step forward and two backwards... in that regard I guess they could be seen as reliable.... They certainly appear to have recently with some of the language decisions. I have developed a business app with WinForms - all 3rd party components are now (finally) moving up to WPF but its not clear as to how long this (and Silverlight) are going to continue. I guess the same situation has arisen for XNA. As I said above, my guess is that WinRT will be the new focus across all platforms. Stuff like WinForms, WPF/Silverlight and XNA will remain for backward compatibility only on the desktop - perhaps a new sub-set of WinRT for the desktop may eventually come to replace these. I do think this could be a great opportunity for Monkey though. |
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| Some interesting comments about ongoing support of existing technologies from Microsoft: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2012/04/05/windows-8-and-the-windows-phone-sdk-pt-2.aspx See comment 2 from Cliff Simpkins one of the main Microsoft phone guys. |
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| So basically for windows 8 XNA still remains a platform you can use for it. That is good to know. |
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