TX/Tutorials and Guides/TX UserGuide/Readme

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Intro

Welcome to Torque X! This document contains important information on what you need to run and use Torque X.

System requirements

Minimum

1.0 GHz processor
512 MB RAM
Windows XP Service Pack 2
Microsoft XNA (http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna/)
Visual C# Express 2005 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/)
Video card supporting DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 1.1

Note: In addition to Visual C# Express you may also use Visual Studio 2005. However some of the other TorqueX products' (e.g. Platformer Starter Kit) installation programs may not be compatible. References to Visual C# Express and Visual Studio 2005 are interchangeable throughout the rest of this document.

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Visual C# Express 2008 and Visual Studio 2008
There is no way to use the 2008 versions at the moment. XNA version 3 must be used within these development tools and it is currently in pre-release testing. Many of the more interesting features (e.g. deploying to the XBox360) are not yet functional. TorqueX is not supported with either XNA version 3 or the 2008 development tools.
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Recommended

2.0 GHz processor
1 GB RAM
nVidia or ATI accelerated 3D video card

Note: XNA Creator's Club membership is required to run Xbox 360 games (http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna/)

Installation

1. Go to the XNA creators club website (http://creators.xna.com/) and select the 'create' icon on the left side (you can also get to this through the home menu; then the quick start guide; then create)

2. Follow the instructions to download XNA, Visual C# Express and the service pack/s

3. Ensure you are logged in as a user with administrator privileges before installing Microsofts' software

4. Install Visual C# Express

5. Install the service pack/s. If you are running Windows Vista then you will also need to install the Vista update. You can do this by running the Windows Update system tool

6. Install XNA Game Studio

7. Ensure any old versions of the Torque X beta are uninstalled

8. Install TorqueX v2

9. Run the Windows Update system tool so that any security patches can be installed

The Torque X installer will install 2 starter kits within Visual C# Express. After installing, open C# Express. Create a new project and you should see icons for all of the Torque X Starter kits. For more information on Torque X and the Starter Kits read the Torque X User Guide.

What's Included (and not included)

This package includes 2 starter kits, 4 demo projects, a trial version of the Torque Game Builder X (TGBX) editor, and some tools for running your games on an Xbox360.

Torque X Pro also includes the Torque X engine source code. Torque X Pro users should ensure they are familiar with the license agreement; in particular, do not re-distribute the engine source in source form.

Known Issues

Multi sampling is not properly supported on the Xbox360.

The many scrolling layers in Tank Buster cause performance issues on some machines, particularly those with ATI X300/500 cards. Updating your drivers may help. Also, reportedly switching your desktop to 16 bit, then back to 32 bit improves performance.

You can also try adding this setting to the torqueSettings.xml configuration file:

<SimulateFences>true</SimulateFences>

This is known to improve TankBuster framerate on the ATI X300/X500.

If you have a different card and the SimulateFences fix improves performance on it, please let us know what your card is. Also, try updating your drivers and let us know if that helps.

Feedback & Reporting bugs

All Torque X users have access to the public forums at GarageGames (http://www.garagegames.com and follow the menu item for community) and the community maintained documentation site Torque Developer Network (TDN) (http://tdn.garagegames.com).

Torque X Pro users also have access to the "Torque X Pro" forums. These forums are available only to users who have purchased the Pro version of Torque X. They also receive priority attention from any Garage Games employees that are reading the forums and answering questions. The "Torque X Pro" forums are the only place where engine source code may be discussed.


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This is Community Maintained, you may, and probably will, find out of date material. Feel free to update any of these articles yourself.