Funny thing is, in C#, you have similar choices. SDL, Ogre, and Irrlicht all have .NET counterparts. XNA is good and there are plenty of great sites, examples and tutorials out there.

I have used both SDL.NET and XNA, but am only slightly familiar with game programming in general. Others here are much more involved in games and more familiar with other tools.

I say, stick with the language with which you are most familiar. Get the fundamental understanding of game programming/development using your engine of choice. Look at Irrlicht or Ogre. SDL may not contain enough of what you will want, but is still a good way to get introduced to game development.

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Matthew Langley
Lead Documentation Engineer
GarageGames

C++ is also a more supported language, being around longer and all.

and with that said, I'm making a game in C#...

I would, however, disagree with jestermax and suggest you learn an Object Oriented language early on, being that it's generally good practice to code that way.

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Realm Master: "I'm cockasian"
Soterion Studios

quote:

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Originally posted by jestermax:
nuh uh. theres no way he should jump right into 3D stuff before at least making a few space invaders.

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I agree. Not sure if you were referring to me, but I never said to go 3D. I did say to learn the "fundamental understanding of game programming/development". Or does Ogre and Irrlicht automatically imply 3D? I thought they allowed for 2D as well.

Arch, C#/XNA are quite smooth. There are plenty of cool tutorials and examples to watch and download. My favorite place is XNA Resources.

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MM out-
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EDIT: on top of it, XNA won't even work with any version of VS other than express edition

[This message has been edited by jestermax (edited January 29, 2007).]

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler
"I believe in freedom... not freedom like America, freedom like a shopping cart"

I had felt the beta of XNA was immature, but as I started seeing the effort and work people were putting into it, I realized there really is something to it. In just a few months there are already physics engines, camera helpers, and two fairly sophisticated and growing production toolsets for creating 3D, interactive environments for use with NXA and C#.

...and I think TorqueX will be pretty neat, too. I haven't looked at it yet, but it does appear to contain quite a lot of functionality necessary to write games.

At one point, people figured out how to get XNA Beta running on VS Professional, but I don't know if that's true for the final release. I am also not sure if XNA will work under Vista at this time.

A good site for seeing what is happening in the XNA world is XNA Resources.

I've heard that the problem with C# and games is that the garbage collection (which can happen at any time) can cause single frames to lag noticeably. This is because it freezes every running thread, frees unused memory, and compacts the remaining allocated memory. One term for this frame lag is "hitching". Garbage collection happens automatically after a certain amount of managed memory is allocated. This is a problem with XNA, because all your memory allocation is managed. If you used .NET bindings for Irrlicht or Ogre, then the the engine itself is running in unmanaged space and if you use the engine's own image and mesh loading functions, then you are not allocated managed memory. However, with C#, many algorithms and operations allocate small amounts of memory here and there, letting the garbage collector free the space the next time it runs. So, with a significant amount of game logic happening in managed code each frame, you could see the garbage collector running quite often, maybe even every few frames. This could really cripple a game with a high frame rate, especially if you are shooting for 30 or 60 or more frames per second (which I think nearly all games should). There are some tricks to reducing the frequency of garbage collections, but they aren't guaranteed to work perfectly, and may require a great deal of added complexity to your code.

Or, you can use C++, and not worry about that at all.

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|steveth45|
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I wish to make an attempt at correcting JesterMax. I am pretty sure C# is Microsoft's version of C the predecessor to C++. J# is the MS version of Java. They lost the right to use "Java" in a lawsuit so they renamed it.

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Realm Master: "I'm cockasian"
Soterion Studios

quote:

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Originally posted by ArchAngel:
C# is a lot more like Java than C.

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler
"I believe in freedom... not freedom like America, freedom like a shopping cart"

C# is a whole different story, it has to do with application and OS programming which is definately Microsoft's yard. My belief is C# will at least be on the same footing with C++ in several years. Think of C# as the glue code used in sticking various speed critical components ( which will still be using C++, i.e. rendering engines, sound, physics, etc). With the changes in version 3 it will even make a nice scripting language.

Learning C++ will not hurt, although it does get hairy when you start building complex things.

Using C# with Irrlicht/Ogre is a nice combination if, as someone mentioned, the engines themselves aren't too much to swallow.

[This message has been edited by Calin (edited February 12, 2007).]

quote:

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Originally posted by Calin:
Using C# with Irrlicht/Ogre is a nice combination if, as someone mentioned, the engines themselves aren't too much to swallow.

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I've toyed around with this idea, but it severely complicated the build and distribution process.

Distribution: When I make a game with Irrlicht in C++, I can statically link the engine with the final binary, and it works, especially if I've modified the engine in some way. With C#, I believe the wrappers all work by using .dll's or shared libraries (in Linux) and just p/invoking into those libraries. Well, on Linux, you have to go through some hassle to get shared libraries working, not to mention there may already be a different version of the engine installed. In Windows, you've got something similar we like to call DLL Hell.

Build/debugging: This shared library, p/invoke cross-over is difficult to cleanly debug. Also, getting everything set up even to build and run correctly on your own system can be a hassle.

Why all this hassle? so you can do this:
device.VideoDriver.BeginScene(true, true, new Color(0,100,100,100));

instead of this?:
driver->beginScene(true, true, video::SColor(0,100,100,100));

The difference is mostly syntactical. The C# code here is slower and takes more memory because of the P/Invoke overhead and the heap instantiation of the Color object.

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|steveth45|
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In your example you can use a static object instead of creating an object on the heap:

device.VideoDriver.BeginScene(true, true, Color.From(0,100,100,100));

Calin.

[This message has been edited by Calin (edited February 13, 2007).]

as far as fast codes and efficient algorithm development go c++ seems to be the best.specially for games it seems to me that it is much easier to code opengl and directx in c++ than any other language.

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Matthew(22:36-40)"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Whose Son Is the Christ

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Matthew(22:36-40)"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Whose Son Is the Christ