XNA Game Studio 3.1

Game Programming Basics

To get started writing games in XNA Game Studio, you may wish to review these key how-to topics.

Fundamental How-To Topics

In This Section

Adding Game Assets to Your Game: Demonstrates how to add a texture asset to your game. The same procedure can also be applied to model and sound assets.
How To: Load Content: Demonstrates how you can load content and ensure that the content will be reloaded at the appropriate times.
How To: Draw a Sprite: Demonstrates how to draw a sprite by using the SpriteBatch class.
How To: Draw Text: Demonstrates how to import a SpriteFont into a project and draw text using DrawString.
How To: Make a First-Person Camera: Demonstrates how to create a first-person camera.
How To: Render a Model: Demonstrates how to load and render a model using the XNA Framework Content Pipeline.
How To: Use BasicEffect: Demonstrates how to create and initialize an instance of BasicEffect, initialize a vertex buffer that can be rendered by BasicEffect, apply the effect, and render the geometry.
How To: Detect Whether a Controller Button Is Pressed: Demonstrates how to detect whether a user has pressed a digital button on a connected Xbox 360 Controller.
How To: Play a Sound: Demonstrates how to play a sound.
How To: Write Games for Less Capable Hardware: Demonstrates how to write games for a variety of computer configurations. Specifically, this topic addresses ways to write a game so it will work on high-end hardware, yet continue to give adequate performance when the game is run on a computer that is less capable.
How To: Open a File: Demonstrates how to use the StorageContainer class to open a save game file in the title storage area on a device specified by the gamer.

Fundamental How-To Topics

In This Section

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