Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Summary:

Getting Started with Monogame and C#

Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Andrew (guest) 25 Nov 2013 00:45

First of all, thanks for the amazing C# tutorials. They have been a great refresher for a language I haven't used for a while (the whole C family, actually).

I do have a question, though. The main reason I have returned to C# is that I have some ideas I wanted to turn into games, and the Monogame platform seemed a great place to start. (It was that or try to make it web-based.)

I have been using Visual Studio Express 2013, and managed to get Mono added into it (it is jury-rigged, since the installer supports 2012). However, given that there is no XNA install for 2013, I have no way to access things that you (and others) say are essential, like the content pipeline.

I know that Mono says their next release (coming soon?) will have the first version of their implementation of the pipeline.

My question is then whether you think I would be better served to downgrade to 2010 (which Microsoft still makes available) and work with that, XNA, and Monogame, or stick with the future and wait for Monogame to make its software available?

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Mausinator08 27 Mar 2014 19:40

Hi. I see no one has posted to this yet. I'll help though.

First of all, read this to get XNA to work in Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio 2013: (I had a link, but this is only my first post.)

(For Windows 8 users) Install Games for Windows Live client. You just need to install it, no further input is required.
Install Visual Studio 2013 or 2012
Install Windows Phone SDK 7.1
This will install VS 2010 Express for Windows Phone and, with it, XNA
If by some reason the XNA installation fails, reinstall
Alternatively, you can install any Visual Studio 2010 and XNA standalone
Copy XNA from VS2010 to VS2013
Copy the folder named XNA Game Studio 4.0 from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft” to
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft”
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft”
Open the extension.vsixmanifest file with your favourite text editor (with Administrator privileges), inside the copied XNA Game Studio 4.0 folder
Change the supported Visual Studio version
Change this: <VisualStudio Version=”10.0″> to
For VS2013: <VisualStudio Version=”12.0″>
For VS2012: <VisualStudio Version=”11.0″>
Tell VS to rebuild the Extensions cache
Run this command (Win+R):
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe” /setup
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe” /setup
If you get an error doing this, run it in a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges
This isn’t always necessary, specially if you have just installed Visual Studio

Also, to get the above tutorial to work in Visual Studio Express Editions, instead of:

Copy XNA from VS2010 to VS2013
Copy the folder named XNA Game Studio 4.0 from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft” to
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft”
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft”

copy them to:

Copy XNA from VS2010 to VS2013
Copy the folder named XNA Game Studio 4.0 from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\common7\ide\extensions\Microsoft” to
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\common7\ide\WDExpressExtensions\Microsoft”
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\common7\ide\WDExpressExtensions\Microsoft”

Also, when rebuilding the extensions in cmd.exe (as admin), instead of:

Tell VS to rebuild the Extensions cache
Run this command (Win+R):
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe” /setup
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe” /setup

do this:

Tell VS to rebuild the Extensions cache
Run this command (Win+R):
For VS2013 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\WDExpress.exe” /setup
For VS2012 “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\WDExpress.exe” /setup

Then follow the steps as is. I did this and can use vanilla XNA in Visual Studio 2013 Express, 2012 Express, and my Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Edition.

This worked for me on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

If you are only using XNA for its content pipeline, then:
1. Create a XNA Windows Game project using the Windows Desktop version of 2013 Express (or if you have the paid version of 2013, then I don't think there are separate executables for that… correct me if I'm wrong.)
2. Add all of your content to the XNA Content Project and Build. (Don't need to run it though, you just need to compile and build so that the Content project generates the .xnb files for you.)
3. Use those files resulting from the build to include in you Mono Game project for Windows Store.

Not sure if this is needed or not, but just to be on the safe side for now for Windows Phone Games (this is for both 7.x an d 8.0) in Mono Game, when creating the Content Project, select XNA Windows Phone Game template because I think the phone projects for content uses Reach only. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I had trouble finding where I read that.)

Good luck!

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Einbrecher 13 Aug 2014 18:46

Not to sound like a wet blanket, but does Visual Studio 2013 Express offer anything significant over 2010 Express?

I work with a lot of older codes in our lab and unless there's a glaring reason to update a compiler or library, we stick with the legacy versions that are all already compatible with each other. Jury rigging a new version to work with an older version and then playing whack-a-mole with the problems that eventually pop up generally isn't worth the effort.

I've been getting back into the swing of things and reinstalled VS 2010 Express the other day, direct from Microsoft. While I was able to get 2010 Express, I noticed that there weren't any links for the full 2010 version. (Which I'd imagine would make these hoops necessary)

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

rbwhitaker 28 Apr 2014 15:38

For anyone reading this, I've actually put together a script that will get XNA working in VS 2013. I have two versions of the script. The first requires VS 2010 and XNA Game Studio 4.0 to be installed already. I know this script works well.

The second version is still a work in progress, but only requires that you have your target version of Visual Studio (VS 2013, VS 2012, VS Express 2013 for Windows Desktop, or VS Express 2012 for Windows Desktop) installed. With this new script, I'd recommend jumping up to VS 2013 (Professional or Express for Desktop) instead of sticking with 2010.

But this second script may not completely work. If you're willing to be a guinea pig, come find me in the chat room and I'll walk you through it one-on-one and help with any issues that come up.

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Scompton 08 Aug 2014 19:56

Sorry to hijack the thread - I'm having real trouble with the templates on VS 2013

I can get monogame up and running with vs 2010, but i use VS 2013 for other things and would rather be on 2013

I can see a number of zip files in

\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#\MonoGame
I can get a project up and running using nuGet, but run into difficulty trying, for instance, to add a spritefont

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

Scompton 10 Aug 2014 07:36

just FYI in case anyone else runs into this issue - i have moved my \documents folder to another drive, and MG installs templates there .. BUT VS is still looking on the C drive … all working now :-)

great site - loving the tutorials!

Re: Visual Studio 2013 or 2010

PiscesMike 10 Aug 2014 08:01

Awesome! Thanks for the follow up Scompton!

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