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What's New in This Release
Describes new features and changes in Microsoft® XNA® Game Studio.

Xbox LIVE Community Games

Changes to the Development Environment and Tools

Changes to the XNA Framework API

Xbox LIVE Community Games
XNA Game Studio 3.0 supports Xbox LIVE Community Games which enables you to distribute your Xbox 360 games using Xbox LIVE Marketplace. For more information, go to the Creators Club Online website.

To assist you in developing complete games for Xbox LIVE Community Games, we've created two new advanced tutorials.

ExtendedTutorials

Changes to the Development Environment and Tools
Upgrading Your XNA Game Studio 2.0 Projects to XNA Game Studio 3.0

To use the new features of XNA Game Studio 3.0 in games that you have already developed, you will need to upgrade your game projects. For information about upgrading your games to XNA Game Studio 3.0 see the Upgrade Guide: XNA Game Studio 2.0 to XNA Game Studio 3.0 topic.

Support for Visual Studio 2008 Products
XNA Game Studio 3.0 installs and runs Visual C#® 2008 Express Edition, as well as the following Visual Studio® 2008 products:

Visual Studio 2008 Standard
Visual Studio 2008 Professional
Visual Studio 2008 Tools for the Microsoft Office System
Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Software Architects
Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Software Developers
Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Software Testers
Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Database Professionals
Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite

For more information, see the Required Software topic.


Support for C# 3.0
XNA Game Studio 3.0 supports the new language features available in C# 3.0. These include: query expressions, extension methods, lambda expressions, expression trees, and partial methods. These new features are available on all the target game platforms - Windows, Xbox 360, and Zune. For more information, see the Overview of C# 3.0. 
 
Support for Games for Zune
XNA Game Studio 3.0 supports developing games that run on the Microsoft Zune digital media player. For more information, see Zune_ProgrammingConsiderations and Connecting to Your Zune Device with XNA Game Studio.

Improved Support for Cross-Platform Games
XNA Game Studio 3.0 provides additional and approved facilities for developing games that run on multiple platforms (Windows, Xbox 360 and Zune). These include linked game projects and content projects, and multiple content projects within a game platform. For more information, see UsingXNA_CrossPlatform_Overviews and its subtopics.

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Now Supports ClickOnce Deployment for Windows
With XNA Game Studio 3.0 you can share your Windows games using ClickOnce deployment. For more information, see the SharingYourGame_Binaries topic.

Transparent Content Compression and Decompression
XNA Game Studio 3.0 automatically compresses and decompresses content (textures, shaders, meshes, etc.) for games built to execute on Windows and Xbox 360 platforms. In addition to requiring less storage space, this will reduce deployment time. For more information, see the CP_Compression topic.

Changes to the XNA Framework API
Media API

SoundEffect API

Marketplace Offers and Trial Mode Testing

Rich Presence

Game Invitations

Networking Improvements

Graphics

Math

Application Model

Fonts

Content Pipeline

Media API
XNA Game Studio 3.0 includes a media library class, which enables you to access content, such as songs, playlists, and pictures in a device's media library. It also includes support for music visualization. The media library class works with all three target platforms--Windows, Xbox 360, and Zune.

Media_XNA

Media

Audio_HowTo_PlayASong

Media_HowTo_ShowPictures

VisualizationData)

SoundEffect API
In XNA Game Studio 3.0, the SoundEffect classes enable you to generate sound effects without using the XACT tool. The SoundEffect classes integrate with the content pipeline and support WAV, WMA, and MP3 audio formats.

SoundEffect

SoundEffectInstance

Audio_HowTo_PlayASound

Marketplace Offers and Trial Mode Testing
Games can now simulate trial mode testing and present marketplace offers to players.

TrialModeAndMarketplace

ShowMarketplace

SimulateTrialMode

IsTrialMode

Rich Presence
Games can now control the online presence information that is displayed to other players when Xbox LIVE Community Games are played.

AddRichPresence

GamerPresence

Presence

Game Invitations
Multiplayer game invitations are now supported across games and in-game via the Guide.

SupportInvitations

ShowGameInvite

InviteAccepted

Networking Improvements

Behavior of Local Sessions
XNA Game Studio 3.0 introduces a change in the behavior of network sessions when local profiles sign out in the middle of a session. In previous versions of XNA Game Studio, a session would end whenever a player signed out. Now, profiles that sign out are removed from the session, and the session will be ended only if there are no suitable players left in the session.

New Methods
ReadColor

AddLocalGamer

New Overloads
Write

New Properties
Id

The new enumeration SendDataOptions.Chat enables you to mark a packet that contains chat data, such as a player-to-player message string entered using the keyboard.

Graphics

New Properties
Viewport.TitleSafeArea

DisplayMode.TitleSafeArea

Removed SoftwareVertexProcessing property

Renamed TextureCube constructor parameter from edgeLength to size

Renamed a number of operator == and operator != parameters that were inconsistent between platforms

Some platforms had the arguments named l/r, while others spelled out left/right. We now use left/right consistently on all platforms. This affects the following
types: VertexShaderCaps, DeviceCaps, DisplayModeCollection, GraphicsAdapter, PresentationParameters.
Added four new Color constructor overloads: Color(float r, float g, float b); Color(float r, float g, float b, float a); Color(Color rgb, byte a); and Color(Color rgb, float a).

Now you can set the Color.R, G, B, and A properties.

Added Lerp method

Math

New Methods
WrapAngle

Intersect

Union

New Properties
IsEmpty

Location

Center

Application Model

New Methods
ShowMissingRequirementMessage

SuppressDraw

The Content property is now settable.

Fonts

New Properties
Characters

DefaultCharacter

DefaultCharacter

TextureFormat

Added overloads of DrawString (x3 versions) and MeasureString (1 version) that take a StringBuilder argument, in addition to the existing ones that take a regular string.

LineSpacing property is now settable

Added optional DefaultCharacter element to the .spritefont XML schema 
 
Content Pipeline

New Methods
Write(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Color)

New Properties
OutputFilename

OutputDirectory

IntermediateDirectory

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