Zenfar:

Thanks for the news about IE7 strings, do you have an example of this or web like, sound useful.

It's called browser agent and is something all browsers send every time they request a webpage from a server.

In PHP you can access it through the global variable $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]; I guess it's just as easy with asp.

 

On my computer IE7 will send this string as useragent: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.2)" 

Parsing that to find .NET 2.0 wouldn't be too hard ;)

This method is however not very reliable, Firefox 2.0 will on my computer send this string: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; sv-SE; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6"

No indication of .NET whatsoever.
Firefox even has a plugin that allows you to specify any useragent you want so you can fake that you'r googles crawler and lot's of other stuff.

 

To check how your agent looks you you can visit http://www.pliner.net/mypc/ They got alot of other spooky stuff aswell, they can even see what version of java, flash and acrobat reader you have - in both IE and Firefox. Isn't this possible with .NET?

The easiest way is to just make a little app like "AreYouRedayForXNA.exe" that checks their system and sends them to the appropiate pages for downloads. This is pretty safe as I've been doing it for years with DirectX. I send them to http://www.microsoft.com/directx". I even open the broweser for them. That link for DirectX hasn't been active for years but Microsoft still auto forwards them to the correct page to this day.

I have found that in my experience Windows users don't really care about the extra download under certain conditions:

A> Don't make them download stuff they already have.

B> Don't make a game that they spend more time downloading and installing than they do playing.

 

The easiest way is to just make a little app like "AreYouRedayForXNA.exe" that checks their system...

This is commonly done but unfortunatly there is no officially documented way to check a system for DirectX... Microsoft choose not to document that so however you do it you could potentially have problems at some point.

send them to http://www.microsoft.com/directx". I even open the broweser for them.

When you have spent a little more time in these forums you will see the problem with that... people think 'I already have DirectX becuase I can run half life 2 - I don't need to run that' so they don't. Problem is they don't have all of directX - probably not the October 2006 bits that XNA needs. It happens at least once a week in here that we have to tell people 'yes you really need to rerun the directx installer even if you think you already have directx'. I've worked on a commercial app that took the same approach as you and we still get support calls where people say 'yes I installed directx' but when we say 'did you actually follow that link we sent you to' they say 'no - I already did it last year'....these days we don't actually direct them to the installer page but to a page where we explain that even if they think they have directx that they should follow the link and reinstall it.

Is it a major problem - no - but its common enough that it could do with some tidying up IMO.

This thread wouldn't feel right without me hehe. I waited for it since the MDX days, nothing happened. I did not stick around for XNA and went back to native code. You see, the more abstractions with managed code, the more runtimes. They can't make it easier. It's just something one has to accept. All they can do is make a installer that downloads the runtimes for the consumer, and don't forget if they have SP2 or not. Now what? Another download?

It may be great for the developer but it will hurt later when they are ready to sell their product, or even release a trial! You give a trial or demo but it requires so many additional downloads. Chances are someone else bought the next demo on the list because they got to try it out in less time. You loose a sale. Customers are very impatient. Go to any grocery store and see potential buyers have a fit after three minutes in line. They will start looking at the next line to see if it is shorter. Use XNA if you don't rely on sales, or just make sure you have really damn good game or trial/demo that can make up the download time.

Worst case senario:
-----------------------
XNA Runtime: 1.9mb 
DirectX Runtime: 44.0mb
.NET Framework 2.0: 22.4mb
WinXP SP2: 266.0 MB 

That's what you get for giving into the whole developer productivty advertisement campaign :) Most indie folks use C++/DX7/DX8. There's also OpenGL which is already installed on the computer. XNA is really a homebrew kit in order to be the first homebrewing kit this console generation. Remember the PS3 did scare Microsoft. If it didn't, they wouldn't have started saying their own homebrew product on the PS1 was not comparable. It's a campaign and they don't give a damn about independent developers and their troubles, to begin with. It's the big companies. When they demand better runtimes, then you'll see Microsoft do something.

Look above you, it reads "XNA Creators Club." Nothing else.

Anyway, I dealt with this for some years and have not seen much done with distribution on the PC. I looked for other solutions because Microsoft wasn't doing much about the issue. They knew about it, but they can't do much with managed code. Each runtime relies on the other. The good news is there are other "clubs" out there and you just have to find the one that fits your products.

To be fair, native games will also need to require the DirectX runtime for the same reasons XNA Game Studio games do.  (excluding OpenGL, just comparing Direct3D games here)  Also, the Visual C++ runtime is comparable in size to the XNA runtime.  Even if you just distribute the CRT DLLs with your game, or statically link to the CRT, you still have that size cost in there somewhere.

However, that still leaves the .NET 2.0 Framework, which is less likely to be installed than a semi-recent DirectX runtime.

I definitely agree with a lot of your argument, nullsmind.  I dabble in C#/XNA and have fun with it, but the vast majority of my coding is still in native C++ and Direct3D9/10.  There are many reasons for this, but one of them is the distribution issue.  If I choose to let some of my friends try out a game I'm writing, they will be much more willing to try it if I can just send them a .zip file without telling them to go download A, B, and C first.

I'm going to stop now. :)

 

nullsmind would a compact framework for XNA like Silverlight has change your mind?

Glen
Zenfar

I think so, yes. Microsoft surely had the right idea with Silverlight. However, it isn't a real 3d graphics API someone can just immediately use and compete with online games like Runescape which uses OpenGL, but it proves fine for simple 2d games. But if they did come out with one download that had XNA with the necessary d3d/d3dx files it needs for that particular version, and perhaps a smaller subset of the .net framework, I don't see why it wouldn't reduce the download size.

But then again, XNA is targeting the desktop while Silverlight targets the internet. Silverlight is based on vector graphics while Java applets have full access to OpenGL and DirectX without causing exceptions (there's some cool examples at http://www.javagameplay.com). But what Microsoft accomplished to make Silverlight small in download size means they too are sharing their interest in making runtimes smaller with a subset of the .net framework. I would assume they have something in mind for XNA but only time can tell.

the problem is the first game comes out spring 2008 microsoft must solve the problem before that time

? why not make a "games and entertatimemt" update on windows update that fix all the problems

if if the private user whant to play games and hear music then download the "games and entertatimemt" update

then if the framework change then it cood be updated normaly ever 3 month

 

try this microsoft

 

 

It's not that easy. You don't just throw a Windows update together like that. There's a lot of pieces to consider.

i now i was just a ?

but it will do the trick

 

While it may do the trick, and I agree that Windows Update is probably the best place for this kind of update, I think Jim's point was that it's not as easy as it seems. If it was so easy then why would Microsoft every now and then put together a Windows update that has a nasty habit of destroying your Windows install (a couple of patches back in the old days for XP had a tendency to corrupt a critical system file and upon restarting the PC blue screens and doesn't work again afterwards).

A "Games and Entertainment" update is a great name.  You could even include a couple of free games to get people started wanting the download.  It would help deployment of the .net infrastructure which would help us all.  I like the idea, it may not be easy but anything get .net onto user's PC is worth the resources.

 

Glen

Zenfar