High End Performance Optimizations on the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7
Ian Nicolades
Technical Director, UberGeekGames
For the Xbox or Windows Phone 7 programmer, performance is something that should always be kept in mind. For any moderately complex game, it can be very easy for framerate issues to crop up, and seeing as those pesky gamers insist on having a smooth playing experience, it can quickly become problematic.
Having had quite a bit of experience in this area with our last few games, this article will be a “missing manual” of sorts; the kind of cheat sheet that would have saved me more than one headache! 
Recommendations on Resuming
Coming hot from the freshly-awarded MVP Michael B. McLaughlin, a set of no less than eight (8= 2*4 = 3+5 = 10-2) tips to improve the experience of users when they need to close and resume your XNA game on Windows Phone 7. The article is a must read for everyone who doesn't want to annoy their customers.
Go ahead and read it now.
Recap of mikebmcl’s posts
Michael B. McLaughlin's had quite a few interesting posts in the last month, so here we are, recapping them for your reading pleasure:
- List of Commonly Used Value-Types in XNA Games
- XNA RenderTarget2D Sample
- ANTS Memory Profiler 7 Review
- CheckMemoryAllocationGame Sample
- Tips for XNA WP7 Developers
There they are. Goldmine of information!
Posting a Clingerman to Stay Relevant
Due to the lack of updates recently we’re going to do an XNA Notes inspired round up on this very Monday, and we also like to post a photo of the original author of the XNA Notes to shout yet another Vote for George!
With that out of the way here are the nominations for next Friday’s XNA Notes (in no particular order):
Jim “Still Not Evil” Perry shares an updated XNA 4.0 for Windows version of the Game State Manager sample.
Nick “MVP” Gravelyn breaks the word about a “solid way to handle trial [Ed.: not trail, as initially stated] mode on the Windows Phone 7” written by Dean Johnson.
There’s a new Ad SDK for XNA on Windows Phone 7 in town, seeking help for a very closed beta.
And last but not least, Jason Swearingen still participates in the #AltDevBlogADay, this time covering Spatial Partitioning. Part 1: Survey of spatial partitioning solutions.
A closing paragraph with the sole reason to have the text flow below the photo and bear no real content. The same can be said about this link to The ZBuffer. However, this The cake is a lie does have a meaning…
Indiefreaks Game Framework v0.2.0.0
Philippe just let us know about the release of v0.2.0.0 of the Indiefreaks Game Framework.
You can read the full details about this release here.
Fishing Girl Did Not Sell a Single Copy!
Well, no single copy on a single day that is. So why this is news? According to a forum post Eric Woroshow promised himself to release the source. “So you can now grab the code for the game and the code for the library from my public Mercurial repositories. It certainly is not the best code I have ever written (far from it!), but nevertheless it does have it moments of clarity and elegance and I hope it proves useful and interesting for the community. Enjoy!
”
Nuclex Framework, Community Character Voting and Morph Targets
Markus “Cygon4” Ewald announces the immediate availability of an intermediate release of his Nuclex Framework, adding: “There are still outstanding issues, but the previous release is already getting a beard and I'm getting reports for issues already solved
”
Amit Ginni Patpatia of FatCow Games AS fame reminds the community to vote for a character for an upcoming game.
Last but not least Barnaby Smith pokes me about an XNA 3.1 Morph Target implementation he put online: “This example uses multiple vertex streams and blends between them using a vertex shader. This approach is a differing method to CPU or VTF based implementations and does not require the calculation of vertex textures, making it quite simple and straightforward.
”
A New Book on the Block and A New Natur Beta
Sez the Chris G. Williams about the fruits of his collaboration with George W. Clingerman:
Weighing in at 552 pages and featuring a foreward [
sicObs.] by the legendary James Silva (Ska Studios, creator of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, I MAED A GAME W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1, and more...) this book gives thorough coverage of XNA 4.0 as it relates to Windows Phone 7.
Continue reading more at Professional Windows Phone 7 Game Development: Creating Games using XNA Game Studio 4 (named in true Microsoft style and spirit…)
Via the forums comes the word that a new beta release of Natur is available. You do not know what Natur is? Well, neither do I so here’s the blurb from CodePlex:
Natur allows you to easily create and manage maps in 3D using the Xna framework. As you build your map, you can enter simulation mode at any time; this will activate bounds, physics, and any game logic such as animations and triggers. The following are currently supported:
- Animations
- Bounding Systems
- Interactive Objects
- Lighting
- Locations
- Physic Simulation
- Spawn Points
- Texture Palettes
- Triggers
Making money in Xbox 360 indie game development: Is it possible?
Via that Clingerman laddie comes the nice write up on making money on XBLIG over on Bitmob by Demian Linn:
Four premier Xbox Live Indie Games developers talk real-world sales figures and the challenges – and rewards – of trying to go it alone.
Dedication for Captain boki
And here's the screenshots for Captain boki
Best wishes,
Captain ZSquare