Windows Vista - .NET Framework

[Scott_Arm]

Is all of the software for Windows Vista going to run on some kind of framework like .NET? I'm just wondering if all the games are going to be running through something like managed DirectX. I wasn't really planning on learning managed DirectX, but if it's going to be the big thing in the next version of Windows, I might change my mind.

 

[Diplo]

Try googling the term "WinFX" - it's the new programming model for Vista, based upon the .NET FrameWork (will it be 2.0?). You can get the SDK from here. And you might be interested in this book. Have a read of http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/about/ for more info.

However, from what I gather, Vista isn't actually built around .NET as previously believed. I guess because writing low-level device drivers in managed code isn't easy. I've also heard grumbles that Managed DirectX can be much slower than un-managed code, though I think the differences have been exagerated or not understood. However, my hunch is that not many games will be written in managed DirectX just yet... Sometime in the future, though, it will become inevitable, I think.

 

[Frank]

Interesting blog from Somasegar, vice president of Microsoft's developer division, about changing the managed .NET variants back into variables that can have a kind of NULL value that should be useable in boolean expressions, and a discussion about the question if (NULL == NULL) should be True, False, None or something else altogether. They use a flag for the new implementation, not a value and/or pointer adress.

 

[Diplo]

In SQL if you compare anything to NULL (using standard = comparison operator) you always get NULL back. For NULL comparisons you use a separate operator (IS NULL).

 

[Frank]

Yes, but you don't have that in C++, AFAIK. So it was rather hard to do logic with that. And it's a pain to format data or do any low-level communication with those variants. I guess the pointers cannot get lost anymore, and the garbage collector removes all empty references. But I rather have strict types.

Anyway, it's probably nice as long as you want or need to use C++, strictly follow the API functions and only want it to run on Windows.

 

[Varg Vikernes]

Try googling the term "WinFX" - it's the new programming model for Vista, based upon the .NET FrameWork (will it be 2.0?). You can get the SDK from here. And you might be interested in this book. Have a read of http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/about/ for more info.

However, from what I gather, Vista isn't actually built around .NET as previously believed. I guess because writing low-level device drivers in managed code isn't easy. I've also heard grumbles that Managed DirectX can be much slower than un-managed code, though I think the differences have been exagerated or not understood. However, my hunch is that not many games will be written in managed DirectX just yet... Sometime in the future, though, it will become inevitable, I think.

AFAIK know everything in Vista is built around .NET except the kernel - there was this stupid article somewhere that made all the headlines about this. People didn't expect the kernel to be written in managed code (if that's even possible)? I also heard managed DX is slow ATM that's probably why Microsoft isn't pushing developers to code games for .NET.

To answer the thread starter: Vista's main API is WinFX, but there's also support for good old Win32/16 (and Win64), MFC,... Just as your XP can run DOS programs. This is (obviously) done for backwards compatbillity - OS X has a _similar_ thing with Cocoa/Classic. Most (all) performance crucial software (such as games) will still be written in the lowest way possible (Win32 and assembly).

edit: People like to compare .NET to Java; How many real games are written in Java?