When I try to compile my project, Visual Studio (2005 Express) hangs, and I get a pop-up that says "Visual Studio is taking longer than expected". If I set my XAP file to NOT compile, then the project compiles just fine (albeit, of course, with a lot of errors where it couldn't find the wave and sound banks I tell it to open).

Granted, this IS a pretty big XAP file (over 160 sounds divided between 16 wave banks and sound banks), so I expect that it would take some time to compile, but last night I left it sitting for over an hour and it never finished.

Any ideas how to fix this?

My guess (no more than that) is that the XACT convertor has come across something it doesn't like in the project. Try replacing it with a super-simple (or empty) project and making sure that works OK. If it does, something in your project must be doing something the converter doesn't expect.

It won't be size in itself at issue though - XACT has been used before with hundreds of banks and tens of thousands of waves. Sixteen banks and a couple of hundred sounds really isn't "big".

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XapParse, a parser for XAP (XACT) files

is there any way to compile xgs files outside of visual studio, or compile them verbosely so I can see where it's getting stuck?

You can build from within XACT itself. I don't know about any verbose mode, but that would at least eliminate VS as the culprit.

 

You can also use xactbld.exe (which I think comes with XNA, and if not it's definitely in the DirectX SDK) and that does have a verbose mode.

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XapParse, a parser for XAP (XACT) files

cool! thanks!