Prepare your Windows Store DirectX game programming environment

[This documentation is preliminary and is subject to change.]

This topic shows you what you need to start programming DirectX games for the Windows Store.

First you need Visual Studio, then you can install the DirectX game GDC 2013 game templates that are available for download.

Get Visual Studio

You must download and install Visual Studio before you install the game templates. Download Visual Studio now.

Note  The GDC 2013 game templates work with Visual Studio Express. The Visual Studio Express preview includes tools for graphics programming, such as debugging tools. For an overview of DirectX graphics and gaming features and tools, see Visual Studio tools for DirectX game development.

Install the templates

There are three DirectX game templates available for download on the Code Gallery. The GDC 2013 game templates come as a Visual Studio add-on in a .vsix installer. Double click the .vsix file to install them.

After the templates are installed, you can choose New Project from the File menu and select Installed->Visual C++->Windows Store and select the project of your choice. The new templates appear on the bottom of the list.

The GDC 2013 game templates are complete, so you can build and run the solution right away. See Create a DirectX game project from a template in Visual Studio to get started.

In this section

Next steps

Learn more about the GDC 2013 game templates for a Windows Store DirectX game, see Create a DirectX game project from a template in Visual Studio.

If you are porting an existing game, see the following topics.

• Port from OpenGL ES 2.0 to DirectX 11
• Port from DirectX 9 to Windows Store

If you are creating a new DirectX game, see the following topics.

• Creating a DirectX game (Windows)
• Developing Marble Maze, a Windows Store game in C++ and DirectX

Build date: 6/20/2013