Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

Audio Blueprints: Microsoft Platform Audio Architecture 101

Scott Selfon

This talk takes an introductory look at audio tools and libraries on Microsoft platforms, with an eye towards new and upcoming features and future strategies in the Xbox 360 and DirectX software development kits. Topics include audio-relevant gaming libraries for audio playback, mixing, 3D positioning, signal processing, music integration, cut scene/video playback, voice chat, and other areas relating to audio, on both Xbox 360 and Windows.

XAudio 2: An Acoustic Architecture

Duncan McKay

XAudio 2 is Microsoft’s new cross-platform low-level audio library for Xbox 360 and Windows (XP and Vista), featuring true API and feature parity on both platforms, as well as a host of sophisticated routing, digital signal processing, and mixing features. In this introductory talk, we present an overview of the audio pipeline design of XAudio 2, introduce XAudio 2’s basic voice and engine objects, and discuss core audio implementation scenarios and best practices.

Codifying Microsoft Game Audio Codecs

Scott Selfon

A host of audio compression schemes are available on Microsoft platforms to allow titles to balance the needs of quality, storage, and bandwidth. This talk offers an introduction to xWMA, XAudio 2’s new software compression format, as well as discussing its similarities to and differences from XMA, the native hardware format of Xbox 360. Also covered will be ADPCM on Windows, compressed music file playback via the Xbox 360 Music Player (XMP) library, and voice compression via XHV.

XAudio 2 Advanced

Duncan McKay

XAudio 2 does much more than just mix and route a game’s sound effects and music. In this talk, we explore some of its more advanced features, including digital signal processing routing, running multi-rate audio graphs, utilizing per-voice filtering, and getting the most out of XAudio 2 performance.

XACT Field Guide

Scott Selfon

The Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) offers a compelling combination of low-level solutions for asset bundling and compression and high-level audio constructs for creating dynamic and non-repetitive sound effects and music. Following a brief overview of concepts and objects of XACT, we focus on new engine and authoring tool features that take advantage of XAudio 2 to more effectively marshal the strengths of audio programmers and content creators. Topics include filtering, xWMA, digital signal processing, content-driven 3D implementation, and dynamic sound control via runtime parameter controls (RPCs).

xAPOs: Build Your Own “Sound Shaders”

Duncan McKay

Real-time digital signal processing is the next frontier for game audio implementations, and custom per-title effects allow for dynamic sound manipulation that’s unique to your title. In this talk, learn how xAPOs are built as dynamic and discoverable entities of XACT and your own custom engine tools. We also discuss the DSP effects already offered “in the box” that you can chain together, tear apart, and otherwise modify to create new and exotic effects.

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

Shedding (Indirect) Light on Global Illumination for Games

Claude Marais

Many innovative global illumination techniques have been described in recent years, but using these techniques in actual games seems to be a non-trivial task. This presentation sheds some light on these difficulties and discusses possible solutions. We review a few of the recent global illumination techniques and, in particular, discuss a detailed implementation of reflective shadow maps, with demos. The goal of the presentation is to leave the audience with a renewed optimism and excitement for implementing global illumination techniques in their games.

Direct3D Samples Update

Cameron Egbert

Come see the latest developments from the DirectX and Xbox 360 samples team. This presentation is a deep-dive into the inner workings of recent and upcoming graphics samples in the DirectX SDK and Xbox 360 XDK. Techniques discussed include deferred particle rendering, Xbox 360 geometry instancing, edge-based antialiasing, and more.

Multi-Threaded Rendering for Games

Allan Murphy

One core is just not enough for graphics anymore—rendering tasks often have to run in parallel to hit the target frame rate and hide latent operations. This talk includes best practices, pitfalls to avoid, and a range of design patterns for implementing multithreaded rendering on today’s platforms, including Direct3D 10 and Xbox 360. We cover everything from batch submission to resource management and discuss future plans for greater flexibility and higher performance when rendering on multiple threads.

Performance Tools Update

Claude Marais

The XNA Professional Game Platform (PGP) development team has been hard at work delivering updates to PIX for both Xbox and Windows. This session brings you up to speed on the new features and improvements made to this critical toolset for performance investigation and analysis with your game.

Introduction to the Direct3D 11 graphics pipeline

Allison Klein

Be the first on your block to learn about how Direct3D 11 extends and enhances Direct3D 10 with new hardware and API calls. This talk discusses the features in Direct3D 11 that enable you to create content that scales from small screens to high-resolution displays, and across different CPU and GPU configurations.

Direct3D 11 Compute Shader—More Generality for Advanced Techniques

Allison Klein

The Direct3D API imposes some constraints on the processing model in order to achieve optimal rendering performance. Direct3D 11 introduces the Compute Shader as a way to access this computational capability without so many constraints. It opens the door to operations on more general data-structures than just arrays, and to new classes of algorithms as well. Key features include: communication of data between threads, and a rich set of primitives for random access and streaming I/O operations. These features enable faster and simpler implementations of techniques already in use, such as imaging and post-processing effects, and also open up new techniques that become feasible on Direct3D 11–class hardware.

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

Enhancing Player Investment and Personalization Through Avatars

Cameron Egbert

From gamer pictures to themes and even custom faceplates, part of the Xbox 360 experience has always been about personalization. The Fall 2008 Flash update introduces the latest customization element for Xbox 360 players – the Avatar. This session reviews the title implementation specifics for this new system, and discusses how to best take advantage of it in your titles.

Social Interaction and Xbox LIVE Party

Jason Strayer

 The new Xbox LIVE Party feature extends the concept of social interaction on Xbox LIVE with 8-person voice chat.  It also provides simple mechanisms for the Xbox LIVE Party group to play multiplayer games together.  This session reviews the Xbox LIVE Party feature and discusses how to integrate your game to create cutting-edge social experiences. Come find out how to make your title interact seamlessly with Xbox LIVE Party, and how doing so will improve your user experience.  If you are currently enabling your title for Xbox LIVE, or are just interested in learning more about the latest features, this talk is for you.

An Evolving Platform: Initiatives to Enhance the Games for Windows – LIVE Development Platform

Jason Strayer

This talk will focus on the initiatives that are underway to enhance Games for Windows – LIVE as a development platform. We will discuss the major pain points and requests that developers and publishers who have been working with Games for Windows - LIVE have had over the past year, and we will detail the steps that the Games for Windows - LIVE team has taken to address these. These steps include delivering exciting new features that have been major requests from developers and publishers, an improved development toolset, streamlined documentation, and a reduced set of TCRs, among others. The key takeaways of this talk are a comprehensive overview of Games for Windows – LIVE as a development platform, how the platform is evolving to accommodate the requirements of our developers, and how to prepare for the exciting new features that will be introduced in future releases. The talk is primarily for engineers and includes code samples and demos of our toolset, though producers may find the information on upcoming features valuable. 

Extending Xbox LIVE with the Xbox LIVE Server Platform

Matt Mills

Xbox LIVE is the premier online gaming and entertainment platform with over 10 million passionate users. Xbox LIVE provides a large number of built in services that you can include in your game, such as friends list, matchmaking, and leaderboards, but what if you want to create new and unique experiences that are specific to your title? The Xbox LIVE Server Platform (XLSP) enables you to extend the power of the Xbox LIVE service by allowing you to host your own title servers. Many premier titles have used XLSP, including Grand Theft Auto IV, Halo 3, and Forza 2, to create innovative server-based features that set them apart from the competition. This talk introduces attendees to the fundamentals of using XLSP to write your own extensions to Xbox LIVE. In addition, we discuss and show the upcoming enhancements to XLSP!

A Custom Marketplace? Where Do I Get One! ert

Jeff Sullivan

Don’t you just love getting all those extra goodies for your games out to your players? Sure – who doesn’t? So why not use our new and improved “In-Game Marketplace” functionality to showcase your game’s content even better? That’s right! You too can shine with the best using an extra coat of API, and back-end storage. Operators are waiting – call now!

Got a Match?  Don't Get Smoked by Your Competition's Matchmaking System!

Finding someone to play online has come a long way from just whomever happened to be in the college computer lab that night.  Matchmaking on Xbox 360 and Games for Windows - LIVE consists of a rich set of features and tools that your competition is using to make stand-out multiplayer experiences.  Why aren't you?  This talk focuses on practical use of the tools in the matchmaking toolbox and shares the secrets behind some current trends like party matchmaking and playlists.  Additionally, it details upcoming matchmaking TCR changes that you simply won't want to miss!

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

One Live World: Opportunities with Games for Windows - LIVE

Drew Johnston 

This talk will focus on the advantages of the Games for Windows – LIVE platform, fact and fiction about the service, and problems we are solving for the developer/publisher. We will cover details on what’s available today, and what you need to get started. You will leave this talk with an understanding of the advantages of one LIVE world, and the benefits to your gamer! We will also cover some changes we are making to improve implementation. The audience is the PC Game developer/publisher who wants to know the advantages of Games for Windows - LIVE.

Maximise Online and Retail Revenue with Premium Downloadable Content (Plus: PDLC Case Study)

Alvin Gendrano

Want to join the growing number of developers and publishers who are each making millions in the console world’s largest online marketplace? With the rapid growth of Xbox LIVE Marketplace (400% annually), compelling PDLC experiences, and a fast-growing base of LIVE-connected gamers, it’s easier than you may expect. This session covers key trends, growth metrics, best practices, and how PDLC helps retail titles (reduced trade-in, more sales, higher pricing, etc.).

The New Xbox Experience

James Miller

This holiday, when Xbox LIVE gamers turn on their consoles, they’re in for a completely new experience.  From the redesigned and updated dash, to the smarter Guide, to the richer Marketplace, Avatars, and Xbox LIVE Party features, there’s a lot to get excited about.  Come hear what it means to you and your titles in the coming years.

3rd Party Marketing:  Partnership & Opportunities

Chris Lewis

The 3rd party marketing team is evolving to meet the growing demands of the Xbox and Games for Windows business and of the publishing community. In this discussion, we introduce who and how to engage the 3rd party marketing team, share lessons learned and best practices from CY07, and review the many FREE co-marketing opportunities open to 3rd party publishers.

Community Games on Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Phil Smail

With our new offering of community games, we are delivering on the promise to truly democratize game development and revolutionize the way consumers get and play community-created games on Xbox 360. This offering is a friction-free distribution channel on Xbox LIVE. Using XNA Game Studio, the community will be able to create games and submit them to a peer-review system. Through this system, other XNA Creators Club members will classify and review submissions for appropriateness and accurate representation before allowing them to be listed in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for all to download and play. Come learn more about how Community Games will be rolled out this fall and how you can participate. 

Taking Advantage of Avatars and Xbox LIVE Party

Jeff Sullivan

Your Xbox 360 titles can benefit from deeper integration with Xbox LIVE Party and the new Avatars system starting with the November 2008 XDK.  Come hear about the history, vision, and direction of these features along with specific opportunities for both in-game Avatars and how you can use Xbox LIVE Party to bring players together into your game quickly and easily.

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

Lessons Learned: The Challenges of Testing XLSP in PGR4 for Content on Demand and Tournaments

Matt Fleming

Today, most games are required to support online play and include online features to keep up with the competition. Xbox LIVE is a great platform, but testing games that utilize its features can be hard and complicated. In this talk, we show techniques, processes, tools, and results of our testing experience through games like Forza2, Project Gotham Racing 4, Viva Piñata 2, Fable 2, and so on. Some of the takeaways of the talk are: understanding of common architecture of games that leverage Xbox LIVE and XLSP; how to test the correctness, performance, and load capacity of the server backend; test tools and automation that help you achieve these goals; and recommended steps to successfully release the game and the service.

Games for Windows - LIVE Certification: Lessons Learned

Ivan Kougaenko

The Games for Windows - LIVE Certification program is already a year old and we have a lot of exciting content to talk about. Come and learn about the upcoming changes in the Certification process, Technical Certification Requirements (TCRs), and Test Cases for Games for Windows - LIVE and why this is important to you. We also walk you through a number of Games for Windows and Games for Windows - LIVE non-compliance issues, all based on real-world examples, so be prepared to take notes.  And if you are interested in the details of Games for Windows - LIVE Certification testing and are looking for the right kind of ammunition to ensure a smooth Certification experience, then this talk is definitely for you.

Xbox 360 Certification: Platinum Style

Nick Rooke

Interested in moving your final game code submission candidates through certification testing quicker? Wish there were more resources available to expedite the test schedule and secure your release to manufacturing goals? Come and learn more about Game Quality’s program that reduces their Testing Service Level Agreement (SLA) for qualified publishers. Breeze through Certification in Platinum style.

PANEL: Xbox 360, Games for Windows, and Games for Windows - LIVE Certification

Qumar Jamil, Brian Power, Peter Cardwell, Ivan Kougaenko and Simon Chapman

Come join our Q&A session specifically designed to provide an open discussion on all Certification-related topics. Several representatives from the different branches of Microsoft Game Quality will be on hand to field your questions about certification on both Xbox 360 and Windows.

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

SAL, Security, Settings, and the Safe-CRT: Writing Robust Code Made Easy 

Bruce Dawson

Writing robust code is always difficult, especially when hackers actively look for ways to crash or exploit your game. Using SAL annotations and the compiler's /analyze feature make it easier to find potential problems in your code. Also, proper use of the secure CRT makes fixing many of the problems easier, and choosing the right compiler and linker switches can substantially mitigate the problems of bugs that don't get fixed. See how a machine gets pwned, and how these techniques prevent it. This talk covers Windows and Xbox 360, VC++ 2005 and VC++ 2008.  

Using VMX and SSE Instructions for Performance

David Cook

CPUs today have large amounts of mathematical processing power and few applications take full advantage of it. Through a low-level deep dive on optimization and counter examples, this talk explains some of the most used VMX instructions for the Xbox, SSE2 instructions on PC, APIs that use vectorized data, and memory alignment issues in dealing with vector operations.

Windows Game Development Update

Cameron Egbert

Get up to speed on the latest game development news in the world of Windows. In this session, we cover development best practices needed to work well with Windows and deliver powerful tools based on the latest Windows technologies. Attend this session to ensure your customers have a great experience playing the games you create on Windows.

The One Disc Game: Compression, Streaming, and Caching Effectively

David Cook

It is no surprise that game assets and content complexity are continuously increasing. In the mean time, the game disc capacity stays constant. Is there anything that can be done? Join us to find out and learn about the latest compression techniques, APIs, streaming analysis tools, streaming techniques and using the hard drive cache effectively. We also discuss topics on content distribution and glimpse into what kinds of improvements are planned for future XDK releases. Finally, we review successful techniques that current shipping titles have utilized.

Microsoft Directions in Parallel Computing and Some Short Term Help

Bruce Dawson

This talk focuses on the native task scheduler being announced by the Parallel Computing Platform group in Microsoft this spring and offerings that are available in the XDK. The scheduling of tasks within games can improve resource utilization, load balancing, and performance. For games targeting the current generation of PCs and the Xbox 360 console, we discuss an interim solution. Previous talks given on this topic laid the foundation for using tasks to move work required by the engine from an over-utilized hardware core to an underutilized core. A progression of task and scheduler designs is presented that start with simple implementations and move to more complex designs that have low-overhead. The simple implementations are satisfactory for a small number of tasks but impose a prohibitive amount of overhead when the number of tasks grows. Finally, we present the work-stealing algorithm that pulls work from one core to another in the low-overhead scheduler.

Here Be Dragons: C++ Undefined Behaviour

Bruce Dawson

C++ allows game developers to wring awesome performance from gaming platforms while also providing language abstractions that make it possible to deliver incredibly rich titles. But there is a cost to be paid, and the cost is high. In order to give implementers maximum flexibility, many areas of the C++ language are purposefully unspecified. Developers can unwittingly rely on unspecified or undefined behaviour, because compilers are not obliged to report those errors (nor can they report errors in many cases). Come learn how to navigate the deadly waters of undefined behaviour.

Back to top

Session Title

Speaker(s)

Description

What’s New in XNA Game Studio 3.0

Mitch Walker

XNA Game Studio 3.0 is just around the corner. Come get an inside look at creating games for Zune, new XNA Framework features, and Visual Studio 2008 support. We also cover best practices for making a great community game using XNA Game Studio 3.0!

XNA Game Studio Performance 2008: Multithreading and GPU

Frank Savage

This presentation explains how to take advantage of.NET Framework and XNA Framework features to split processing load onto multiple cores and the GPU. This presentation focuses primarily on Xbox 360 performance techniques, but may also include information relevant to XNA Game Studio developers on Windows.

Networking, Traffic Jams, and Schrödinger's Cat

Mitch Walker

The XNA Framework networking API makes it easy to join a session and exchange data packets. But what exactly should you put in those packets? This talk explains how to overcome the challenges posed by limited bandwidth (if you send too much data, or fail to properly compress it, your game could end up even slower than my morning commute) and delivery latency (when packets arrive late, you must use prediction algorithms to smooth things out, creating a strange quantum world where each object has more than one state being simulated in parallel).

Building Worlds with the Content Pipeline

Frank Savage

Real games need more than just one mesh. They require spawn points, trigger boxes, and collision skins. A game level is not just an input to the graphics engine, but must also contain information about collision detection, sound, game logic, and AI. Most games also contain more than one level. This talk discusses how to extract rich level metadata using the XNA Framework Content Pipeline, and how to drop down to the underlying MSBuild technology when you need to build large amounts of content in a scalable and performant manner.

Taking Xbox LIVE Arcade Games to the Next Level

Dan Maher

LIVE and Arcade offer many tools and services that developers can use to make their games even more appealing. This session gives examples of some of the many innovations in Arcade games. Also, considering that the most important tool in selling a game on Arcade is the trial, this session presents best practices for how to design a trial experience that optimizes conversion.

Integration APIs for MSN Site and Messenger Games

Alexey Kouzmitch

Two of Microsoft’s most widely deployed gaming platforms, MSN Games and Windows LIVE Messenger, both offer APIs for deploying Flash-based or custom ActiveX control–based game titles. This session gives an overview of both APIs as well as the development environment and tools for each.

Back to top