“WALK IN” SLIDE

August Developing Games for Windows and Xbox 360: Stories from the Trenches Joe Waters Software Development Engineer FASA Studio / Microsoft Game Studios Presentation/Presenter Title Slide

August Stories from the Trenches Panel Participants Tony Cox – Microsoft Game Studios Rod Lopez – Ubisoft Montreal John O’Rorke – Monolith Productions Michael Saladino – EA Los Angeles Standard Slide with subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Topics at a Glance Multi-core architectures: Xbox 360 vs. PC Abstraction: How much is too much? Memory management C++: STL, virtual functions, exceptions Content creation and native formats Source/asset control for team productivity The Future™ Highlights and vagaries of the display Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Multi-core architectures: Xbox 360 vs. PC The range extends from multi-core multi- threaded console CPUs down to single-core PC variants. What thread architectures have been successful in shipped games so far, and where do we go in the future? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Abstraction: How much is too much? Developing portable code requires some level of abstraction. Too much (or too little) abstraction can kill performance or make maintenance a nightmare. Where do you draw the line for abstracting systems (rendering, memory management, etc)? Individual functions? Classes? Whole libraries? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Memory Management There are established methods for managing memory in console games to combat both fragmentation and allocation waste. What techniques have you used, and did any generate unexpected side-effects while moving between platforms? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches C++: STL, virtual functions, exceptions C++ is almost ubiquitous in PC games and fairly common in console titles. Between STL, exception handling, virtual functions, and behind-the-scenes memory management, what are the pros and cons of various features in a multi-platform environment? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Content creation and native formats Content creators need the ability to rapidly iterate and test their changes in the runtime environment. However, between PCs and consoles with massive next-gen art size requirements, content generally needs to be preprocessed offline into native formats. How do we reconcile rapid iteration against speed and stability of native formats? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Source/asset control for team productivity With content sizes blooming and assets becoming more interdependent, it’s harder than ever to achieve a balance between build stability for line content creators and rapid build iteration for designers and engineers. How often can we generate “blessed” builds without impacting stability or iteration productivity? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches The Future™ Have we reached the point where the only differentiator between good and bad games is gameplay? If not, what technology advances or changes to existing hardware would have the largest impact on our ability to produce quality games? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Highlights and vagaries of the display Between NTSC, PAL, VGA monitors, and HD televisions, black level, gamma, and color response is a mess. What color correction methods have worked well in the past, and what are plans for the future? Standard Slide without subtitle

August Stories from the Trenches Circulus Velocitus ( Speed Round! ) Color Guidelines

August Stories from the Trenches Questions?

August Stories from the Trenches Everybody go to the party. All the cool kids will be there.

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary. DirectX Developer Center Game Development MSDN Forums Xbox 360 Central XNA Website End Slide

August