So here are the things and software you need.
First of all, you need to have visual studio 2010 version or lower.
Upon installing visual studio, Download the XNA framework here.
Install the framework and open your Visual Studio.
Let me explain how the XNA game project works.
There are 5 process in a xna project, these are the following:
1.Initialize
2.LoadContent
3.Update
4.Draw
5.UnloadContent
The loop of the game is
Initialize > LoadContent > Update < > Draw > Unload Content..
As you can see, the first part is the initialization. Where graphicdevices, contentmanager and spritebatch are being made or instantiate. It really depends on how you program a game. So basically, Initialize and loadcontent act in similar manners. They both load or instantiate some objects, classes, methods or process before the game loops on update and draw..
The second process of the game loop is the LoadContent, from the name itself. This is where we want to load all the contents such as images, videos, 3D model etc into our game. Loadcontent only run once in a normal game loop. You CAN load other contents in any part of the class, but since it will cause some performance drop. Make sure than you only load contents or assets in update or draw if the object keeps changine on runtime.
The third process is the Update, in this method. You will put all your commands and updates in this method. We usually use this to update our game objects or assets before we want to draw it. Especially when its value is changing such as a game object position. Update and Draw method runs 60 times per second, and the game loops within this 2 method so most of our codes will be written under draw and update method.
The fourth process is the Draw method, where all the game objects will be rendered and drawn into the screen or game world. Make sure to update all values of game objects before you draw. After drawing game objects, the game loop will return to update then come back into the draw method again..
The unloadcontent is the last method or process in the game loop. It the game is closing, we want to make sure that all contents are unloaded before shutting the game down. This is where you are going to dispose all of the assets and contents you used. You don't need to put much attention in this method since it will automatically dispose contents as soon as you close an application.
So now that we understand the game loop lets now create a game and take a look into the source code.
To create a new xna project, at the upper left corner of your screen:
Click File > New Project > Under C# node click XNA GAME STUDIO 4.0 > select platform..
In the following tutorials, i am going to use windows game 4.0 template. So it can easily be executed
since we rarely use other platforms than windows.
Next tutorial, basic loading,updating and drawing process.
