Virtual Realm

XNA and GSE Beta 2 Release

Thursday, November 02 2006

Today the Latest Beta of the XNA Framework and Game Studio Express where released, Also included in the release was a re badging of the Developer Center and some new artwork for the XNA System. Check out the New Developer Centers Look.

For those who do not know what XNA and GSE is here is the overview from the Microsoft Downloads site.

"XNA Game Studio Express enables hobbyists, academics and small, indie game developers to more easily create video games using new, optimized cross-platform gaming libraries based on .NET for Windows and XBox 360. This beta release targets the development of games for Windows. The final version of XNA Game Studio Express will be available later this holiday season and will enable development of games which target Windows and upon purchase of an XNA Creators Club subscription, the XBox 360 as well.

While we’re very proud of this Beta 2 milestone and it represents full functionality on Windows, it does not include the full feature set for developing, debugging and playing games on the XBox 360. The features specific to the 360 console will become available upon the final release of XNA Game Studio Express later this holiday. This beta also does not include the additional starter kits and tutorials which will be made available upon final release of XNA Game Studio Express and/or as part of your XNA Creators Club subscription"

Here is the Download Link for the XNA and GSE Beta 2...

Also released with the new Beta is a redistributable that can be used on Client systems, the will help when distributing your applications as the client will no longer need to have the Visual Studio Express or the DirectX SDK Installed. The client will need the DX Runtime though from the latest DX Release.

"The XNA Framework redistributable provides the necessary runtime components to execute a game on Windows that was developed using XNA Game Studio Express Beta2. Installation of this runtime is not necessary on systems that already have XNA Game Studio Express Beta2 installed. Developers may include this runtime redistributable when they share their games written using XNA Game Studio Express Beta 2, but may not currently be used for commercial applications. "

Here is the Download link for the Redistributable Package..

Migrating your XNA Beta 1 code to Beta 2

David Weller has posted a small post that goes through some of the things that are needed to convert an XNA B1 application to B2, here is the Link to David's Post.

Here is a link to ZMan's post on some of the changes from the Beta 1 system to the Beta 2 system. When I get the system installed I will see if I can make any additions.