Hi, I had started this little game in XNA 1.0 on a machine equipped with a Geforce 8 and everything was working very well.

This weekend I need to work on a machine that has only an MX440 which as I understand is too old for DirectX9, and I have installed XNA 2.0.

I had found a way to run the graphics on the CPU here: http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/ShortTuts/Reference_device.php

The trick was to add this method anywhere in the game class:

void SetToReference(object sender, PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs eventargs)

{

eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.CreationOptions = CreateOptions.SoftwareVertexProcessing;

eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.DeviceType = DeviceType.Reference;

eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.PresentationParameters.MultiSampleType = MultiSampleType.None;

}

if (GraphicsAdapter.DefaultAdapter.GetCapabilities(DeviceType.Hardware).MaxPixelShaderProfile < ShaderProfile.PS_2_0)

graphics.PreparingDeviceSettings += new EventHandler<PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs> (SetToReference);

Doing this in XNA 2.0, though, I get the following errors:

'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceInformation' does not contain a definition for 'CreationOptions' 

The name 'CreateOptions' does not exist in the current context 

Is there a way to fix this? Thanks!

SoftwareVertexProcessing = true;

Reference your game class, and its graphicsdevice to get it.

gameclass.Device.SoftwareVertexProcessing = true;

Ok what I did:

-added the SetToReference method minus the line with CreateOptions;

-added a call to this method from the main method (Game1());

I get:

No, the DirectX SDK wasn't installed. I didn't have any errors though, well except for what I've shown you.

Now I'm back on my Geforce8 machine, and hopefully next week I'll have an X800 Pro for the older computer so I should be able to avoid the problem. If not well I'll be back here pestering you with questions. Thanks for the help so far.

Even if you get REF working its so slow that its unusable for anything but the simple 'draw a textured cube' type scenarios. Most of the time you will be fed up of it about 15 minutes after you get it working and you will be glad to hand over the $50 for a card that will run it properly.

REF is not designed as a software rasterizer and so has no speed optimizations. Its purpose is simply to show what the hardware SHOULD produce if the drivers and the hardware are operating correctly.

Hey all,

   I had done some development on XNA GS 1.0 about 5 months back and I had it working perfectly on my laptop using the software graphics emulation.  (Well, perfect enough to test on before deploying to XBOX and using the graphics hardware.)  As others have discovered, with the move to 2.0, my previous code no longer works.  I've tried the solutions above, and still get the same error that a compatible graphics device cannot be found.  Can someone post or point me to a complete working solution?  It can just be "Hello World" or whatever that I can build on.  Thanks in advance for your help, and I'm sure you'll be helping others down the line.

PS-I've read it all before - "just upgrade your computer", "get a graphics card", "performance sucks anyway", etc. so please don't respond in that manner.  I understand the limitations, but I used the reference device very successfully in the past with 1.0, and I'd like to use it again.

Thanks!

Update - one thing I noticed.  I currently have the Feb 2007 SDK installed.  Could that be the problem?  Do I need a newer version?  I tried to breakpoint the SetReference function and it nevers seems to trigger.

First off, here is the code that I'm running: (I'm using the PeerToPeer sample project)

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        public PeerToPeerGame()
        {
            graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); // <--

            graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = screenWidth;
            graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = screenHeight;

            Content.RootDirectory = "Content";

            Components.Add(new GamerServicesComponent(this));

            //if (GraphicsAdapter.DefaultAdapter.GetCapabilities(DeviceType.Hardware).MaxPixelShaderProfile != ShaderProfile.PS_2_0)
            graphics.PreparingDeviceSettings += new EventHandler<PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs>(SetToReference);

        }

        void SetToReference(object sender, PreparingDeviceSettingsEventArgs eventargs)
        {
            //eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.CreationOptions = CreateOptions.SoftwareVertexProcessing; 
            eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.DeviceType = DeviceType.Reference;
            eventargs.GraphicsDeviceInformation.PresentationParameters.MultiSampleType = MultiSampleType.None;
        }

I commented out the "if" statement in line 8 just to make sure line 9 would execute.

The only lines I added to the project were 8, 9, and 11-16.

Here is the stack trace:

   at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.CheckForAvailableSupportedHardware()
   at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.ChangeDevice(Boolean forceCreate)
   at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GraphicsDeviceManager.Microsoft.Xna.Framework.IGraphicsDeviceManager.CreateDevice()
   at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Run()
   at PeerToPeer.Program.Main() in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\XBOX\XNA\PeerToPeerSample\PeerToPeerSample\PeerToPeer\PeerToPeerGame.cs:line 516

In XNA GS 1.0, I had this code:

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#if XBOX
        graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); // <--
#else
        graphics = new ReferenceGraphicsDeviceManager(this); // <--
#endif

And then I included ReferenceGraphicsDeviceManager.cs, a class which I found online.  Unfortunately, that class does not work under XNA GS 2.0.  It would almost seem like we need to employ the same methodology, but a compatible ReferenceGraphicsDeviceManager.cs needs to be written.  BTW, the reason this class does not work in 2.0 is because it calls Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.CreateOptions and this method no longer exists in 2.0.  Maybe it's been superceded by a similar method?

Hmm...upon closer inspection, Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.CreateOptions is not a method, it is an enumeration.  Perhaps if I can find the values for the enums that are being used, I can modify ReferenceGraphicsDeviceManager.cs to work in 2.0 as it did in 1.0.

It looks like the important enums are HardwareVertexProcessing, SoftwareVertexProcessing, and MixedVertexProcessing.

Also, sorry about the lack of tabs. The code formatter here replaced them with 4 spaces.

- Daniel

Graphics.GraphicsDevice.SoftwareVertexProcessing = true;