When developing games in XNA Game Studio, you use the XNA Framework, a set of managed libraries for Windows and the Xbox 360. These libraries enable you to be more productive developing C# games using a set of unified class libraries.
How To Get Started
If you are new to game programming, or just want to review the basic steps toward getting a simple game up and running in XNA Game Studio, see the how-to articles in Game Programming Basics.
How-to articles are available in the following categories.
In This Section
- Game Programming Basics
- To get started writing games in XNA Game Studio, you may wish to review these key how-to topics.
- Content Pipeline
- The XNA Game Studio Content Pipeline builds art assets that you have included in your project into a form your game can load at run time on either Windows or the Xbox 360 game machines by calling ContentManager.Load.
- Application Model
- The application model provides functionality to accomplish common game development tasks.
- Graphics
- The XNA Framework Graphics libraries provide low-level resource loading and rendering capabilities.
- Math
- The XNA Framework provides classes and methods for manipulating vectors and matrices.
- Input
- The XNA Framework Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input namespace provides classes and methods for retrieving user input for keyboard, mouse, and Xbox 360 controller devices.
- Audio
- The XNA Framework Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio namespace provides classes and methods for playing audio files.
- Storage
- The Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Storage namespace provides classes that allow reading and writing of files.
- Networking
- Contains introductory articles describing how to to create and join multiplayer game sessions, manage game state across clients, and interact with the friends list.
- Hardware and Platforms
- Provides information about programming for specific hardware types and platforms using the XNA Framework.