Can I use Photon with XNA?

Forest

Hi, I'm exploring the idea of make a 2D MMO. But I don't know if I can use Photon with XNA games. I know Microsoft have the XBox Live network, but you need a membership (and players too I think)... so, can I use it?

Boris

there is a good response:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=85&p=776&hilit=XNA#p756

Forest

Well, I have read it already, but there're saying the mermership thing, and it says "this tool is not a target for XNA and I would NEVER expect or want them to go that route"... but I don't understand if it is only an advice, or definitely you CAN'T use it...

My situation is this: I can make my game on Silverlight or on XNA, so... will be easier for my use Photon with silverlight?

[Deleted User]

I think that largely depends on your target platform. I don't know much about Silverlight to be honest, and it's been a while since I last took a good look at XNA, but as far as I know if you're developing on Windows you can attach pretty much any library to the project and run with it just fine. XNA is just a nice wrapper for DirectX. But the XNA implementation of networking for the XBox and WP7 seems to be more complicated and tied to their system than for the PC. That being said I doubt Photon will play nicely with it unless you have a developers license from Microsoft to develop for the XBox directly; rather than Live Arcade.

I'm making a few assumptions based on past experience but hopefully this helps direct your future research in some way.

Tobias

You can use Photon in Silverlight and on WP7.1.
We don't support XNA directly, as there is a "Live" service for the XBox and we don't even know if Microsoft approves of independent hosting for multiplayer.

Silverlight can be run in the browser but I don't know their installed userbase. There are a lot of devices for XNA (I think it's not only XBox).

enoIHNO82NO

I was wondering about this and trying to find more info about using Photon with XNA.

From my understanding development with the XNA framework for PC doesnt really have limitations for networking APIs but for console, and I assume also the phone, it does.

Im not extremely interested in XBOX development but I would love to get an MMO out there for PC even if massive amounts of multi players dont play it...

From my limited experience, and from what I can understand so far with the tutorials out there, one would develop the server side with the .NET or whichever SDK for the server you feel comfortable with (Ive seen some VB I think too when adding or deleting "apps") and then figure out which of the libraries is best to include in the XNA project? This is where Im stuck. Since there is no real SDK for XNA framework Im guessing the .NET framework? Or is there a better SDK to use? This is all my limited experience and total lack of knowledge of these things speaking.

I imagine one would have to handle the communications through a separate class that can be instantiated (I guess like a gameObject?) in the main game class of the XNA framework as the typical XNA game structure is very different from the client samples Ive seen so far. Then pass info back and forth between the main XNA game class and the other class giving the main XNA class what it needs to make its decisions about what to "Draw" and likewise passing information about user input to the other class so it can serialize the data to be communicated<am i using this terminology the right way?

Hopefully this thread isnt totally dead. Someone let me know if Im totally off or close to understanding the beginnings of what I need to do. Ive been going through the tutorials and created my 5 minute hello world stuff. Im not very experienced yet but I have read as much of the documentation thats on the site as I can digest. Im following a blog about MMO server and client creation with Photon and Unity and trying to watch videos and read more about this but nothing is really directly applicable to XNA(which makes sense because its not officially supported).

dreamora

the network limitation is an X360 only thing.
On WP7 you don't have it but are limited to TCP sockets and will potentially need to limit it to WP7.5

And yes you would use the .net Client SDK as XNA is primarily the graphics & game functionality side, the 'core' on which you program for XNA is the same .NET which also powers desktop, asp.net and silverlight targeting

danglingneuron

You most definitely can with the exception of XBOX.

XNA based games can be developed for Windows desktop, Windows Phone 7.5 & XBOX.

Photon can be used on Windows Desktop as well as Windows Phone. (and now Photon also supports Windows 8 Metro Apps). And Photon is not limited to TCP on Windows Phone.

My game Air Soccer Fever is XNA game for Windows Phone 7.5 (also ported to Windows 8 Metro but thats not XNA) and it uses Photon for realtime multiplayer.

Watch video on my development blog:

http://danglingneuron.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/air-soccer-fever-wp7-vs-windows8