Games in C# is it even Possible

Thomas Freudenberg

Arena Wars[^] is a great game.

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Daniel Grunwald

You should replace for (int i = begin; i < end; ++i) with for (int i = begin; i < primes.Length; ++i) And do the same with the inner loop. This is a special construct recognized by the JIT that eliminates array bounds checking. I haven't tested this on .NET 2.0 yet, maybe .NET 2.0 eliminates array bound checking even when not using that fix.

Chris Charabaruk

Actually, with a game, you shouldn't dispose resources as soon as you're finished with it. If possible, you should make sure the GC doesn't, either. The idea is to dispose unused resources during a transition (those times when the loading screen pops up) so as to avoid hiccups in the frame rate. It's not all that important when it's just one or two little resources but if you're clearing out game resources in bulk players will notice. Same goes for loading them.

Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk

Chris Charabaruk

Puh-leeze. C# isn't faster or slower than any other language, it's all in how it's used. I developed a little game in 3 days that used only 2D graphics with the help of SDL.NET, and it struggles at 30 FPS. I've seen MDX and Tao.OpenGL that just fly. C# is a perfectly good language for game development, concerns about resource & memory management or no.

Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk

pkoselski

Try to implement perpixel alpha blending in C# and you'll see why there are no many games written in .net. The answer is - because there are many winapi functions which doesn't have corresponding .net methods. These functions are in most cases so-called low level, such as WINAPI UpdateLayeredWindow function. So, the only way to implement pp alpha blending is to call WINAPI function from C# but does it make any sense? Isn't it better to write the game in C++ and use WINAPI functions directly?

X Cyclop

Sure, you can. But, C# has a disadvantage: .Net Framework/MONO. For this reason i'd use C++.;)

AntiSilence

Very possible. Check out this article at Coding4Fun... Rocket Commander

si618

Interesting, cheers for the link! There is also NGen for improving managed assemblies performance: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf.aspx

samir ray

Not only is it possible, Koios Works has released multiple games all developed in C#. Their latest game, Panzer Command: Operation Winter Storm just came out in June.

baldricman

bwahahahaha!!!! and 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Abrian P Stemmet

Check out this game written in C#: http://www.rocketcommander.com[^] Rocket Commander Tutorials: http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/gamedevelopment/rocketcmd/default.aspx[^]

Robert Vukovic

There are some great tutorials on the following links. [http://abi.exdream.com/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/gamedevelopment/rocketcmd/default.aspx](http://abi.exdream.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/gamedevelopment/rocketcmd/default.aspx)[[^](http://abi.exdream.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/gamedevelopment/rocketcmd/default.aspx "New Window")] Arena Wars is commercial game written in .NET. http://arenawars.krawall.de/com/[^]

AlexanderF

Hi, there already is a professional 3d Game programmed in C#/.NET: http://arenawars.krawall.de/start.html

gancev

c++ rulez

Stick

It is possible, but you would only select C# for game develoment in the case of a game that did not require state-of-the-art performance. C# is indeed slower than properly written C++. However, in either language you can tank the performance if you are not an experienced programmer. C# in the hands of a good developer could actually exceed the performance of a poor programmer using C++, depite being interpreted. If you are planning on writing the next FPS, like Quake X, then you'll need to use C++. If you are writing another version of Soduku, then C# will perform fine. In the industry, programmers skilled in both languages typically use C++ for coding the game, and C# to code tools, like level editors. Why? Well, in the game, I want to be able to do anything at any time for maximum performance. I may even go to inline asm. But, I want the tools to develop game content (levels, animations, etc.) built quickly and C# allows that to happen without worries about memory management. To truely be proficient in programming in C# you'll need to understand memory management to understand how it works behind the scenes, or you'll be writing slow code anyway. So, learn both. Patrick