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I was thinking of developing several rather simple card games in DirectX (3D), but I'm not sure if C# and XNA are powerfull enough for this.

Perhaps the most appropriate question is: can you choose one or several already available 3D games that you think are the best XNA can achieve?

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This question is somewhat vague as written. If you think your second half has a more appropriate question then you should make that, possibly with some re-wording, your question. "What are the limits of XNA's rendering capabilities?" If that is what you are actually asking with your 2nd question. It is somewhat unclear. –  lathomas64 Nov 19 '10 at 22:39
@lathomas64: The meaning of my question might be vague to game developers who have a lot of experience in XNA development. Given as is, it produced two answers that for me, as a total beginner, gave a lot of information. I'm sorry that others (presumably a lot more experienced) didn't find it useful, but it sure opened my eyes when it comes to XNA capabilities. Thank you for your suggestion, I totally understand your point of view. –  Nikola Malešević Nov 20 '10 at 14:06
If C# isn't powerful enough for a card game, why would it have directX bindings at all? –  The Communist Duck Nov 22 '10 at 19:47
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3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted


See also this question: Famous Games Written in .Net and XNA

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Thank you very much, Tetrad. That's all I need to hear. Well, this article too: forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/29306.aspx –  Nikola Malešević Nov 19 '10 at 22:42
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You're thinking about it all wrong. XNA pretty much is DirectX 9 for C#. Especially on the PC where there is little overhead on the draw calls compared to the Xbox 360. Further more, any shader code you write will run exactly the same as it would using DirectX 9. Therefore, almost everything that can be done with DirectX 9 can also be done with XNA.

The question you should be asking is "would I benefit from using c++ over c#?".

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Now you even have a starter kit for XNA for card games:


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