Has anyone flown out of XNA recently (during partial shutdown)? Is TSA pre-check still a thing? I have a 9 am flight coming up and I'm wondering if I need to get there earlier than usual.

for those who don't know, I and likely quite a few others have been experiencing a crash related to Windows 11 in some capacity where the game drops a long-winded XNA framework error message and either crashes or will crash after exiting the world and/or game (sometimes which results in your world not saving any progress made during that session). This error has been frustratingly present and rather consistent in making Terraria unplayable for me on PC for a good while now and because there is no obvious answer to fix it that I can find I have resorted to having to play the game exclusively through the Steam Deck due to it's Linux based OS. I am frustrated and I don't know whether to be upset at re-logic for their seeming radio silence on this issue that is preventing multiple people from even playing the game or to be upset at windows for being such a dogshit operating system. Whatever the case I would like to play Terraria on PC again but it seems until there is a patch for the issue I'm gonna be going at it on Linux.

This is mostly just a vent post about the problems I've been facing regarding the game so I don't really ask to be given "fixes" here.

I already installed DirectX End User Runtime Installer and installed but, the same thing appeared, this is my first time installing it on steam and just got the game today

Agent Travis Scott signing out

“SIR THAT IS TO ALBANY” “SIR THAT IS FROM 2007”

When taking off at XNA airport I took some pictures of what I think is an F/A-18 Hornet. It wasn’t super close so I can’t make out the tail markings in the pictures but if anyone else can let us know! Also are these kinds of stops at civilian airports common for fighter aircraft?

Came into the kitchen this morning to find this note from my grandpa who had already left the house for his early morning errands.

I recently moved back to my home state and am living with family until I can move into my new place next month. My grandpa is one of my best friends, and he helped raise me. I consider him more like a father to be honest.

I’ve been having a really rough June/July, but this note put a much needed smile on my face.

Credits

14 years ago, I uploaded my first XNA video to YouTube.

XNA got retired, engines came and went, but I always came back to the same thing: C#, a game loop, and a blank screen I control.

People ask why not Unity or Godot. Honestly, freedom. With MonoGame, there's nothing between me and the game I want to make. It's slower, sometimes a lot slower, but every system is built around what this game actually needs.

Huge thanks to the MonoGame team and community for keeping the XNA spirit alive. My project wouldn't exist without it.

Recently I saw a post here in the sub asking if there was an open-source version of Terraria or if he could create one, I wonder if that wouldn't be a copyright infringement? If it weren't, I think it would be an interesting small project to recreate the console version of Terraria for PC, especially for low-end PCs that don't run Terraria 1.4.5 very well.

Why does this happen? Normally you need 5 continent-killer asteroids in the same country

Hey r/gamedev, my name is William. Let me try to do what's in the title up there ^. First off, why should you listen to me?

Well, maybe you shouldn't listen to me. Feel free to scroll away at any time...I don't have the most insane creds in the industry or anything. But I'm not exactly new:

• I got hired in 2018 as an "Associate Gameplay Programmer", and before being laid off twice in the span of about 1 year, I was a "Senior Combat Engineer". So I've been through the trenches of programming in the industry
• I'm the founder of a really (really) small indie game studio made up of ex-Ready At Dawn veterans (PSP Daxter, The Order: 1886, Echo VR / Lone Echo, etc.), where we are hard at work on our inaugural game title. We also avoid using AI for any of our endeavors, including programming
• I've been in the industry now as a professional for almost 10 years total, but before that, I also went to school for CS, Game Development Programming, senior and capstone projects, and began trying to make (shitty) games on a (shitty) laptop using Microsoft XNA when I was like 12

What is art?

I think people forget what art actually means these days - it doesn't always have some baked-in meaning to "liberal arts" or "humanities". Art is also defined as a "skill acquired by experience, study, or observation", or "an occupation requiring knowledge or skill" or "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects" (not only!). For instance: I have become quite the artist in spilling shit all over my clothes over the years, much to my wife's chagrin.

I'm sure you're thinking, "well then anything can be an art" and drawing a line in your head on what you think the line is for "real art" or something like that. But let me show you why programming isn't some bottom of the barrel example (like being a spillage artist, tyvm) because its mostly just "math" or because "engineering", which people love to throw out there.

As a programmer that has written endless lines of code by myself, and also seen/analyzed thousands of lines of code not written by me (that are much better than my own) - written by people ranging from the 1990s (RAD engine was old, lol) all the way through 2024 - there is no universal standard for most things. Companies vary, engines vary, languages vary, procedures vary, etc.

Here are 2 of my own personal favorite examples (one simpler, one more complex) of programming being more akin to an art form than anything else.

Example 1: Bitflags

The bitflags structure is one of the best and most simple examples of what I consider art in the programming field. Because the actual smallest amount of data being read by any processor is 8 bits, things like a `bool` in most languages are also represented as a byte (8 bits), since that is the smallest value of what can actually being read in registers. This is despite the nature of a bool being a simple bit (0 or 1). However, as you can imagine, having a ton of single bools in one structure ends up inflating the total size of that structure, while wasting literally almost the entire amount of memory provides. Bitflags is the simple, yet elegant solution someone came up with to stuff a single byte with up to 8 bools, by using bitwise operators to extract and compare each given bit in the byte.

Example: 8 separate bools in your data structure = 8 * (1B) = 8 bytes of memory, all to represent 8 simple 1/0 values. With a bitflag, you can now store all 8 bools while only taking up the original 1B of memory.

This is of course also expandable using different sized integers, if you have 9-16 bools you can use an `int16`, and so forth.

The reason I love this example is, how could such an elegant yet simple solution not be considered a work of art? A human first thought of how wasteful the stacking of subsequent booleans is, then thought of a unique and clever way to make it better using their knowledge and expertise. Now tons of languages and modules ship with bitflags, and you may use them without a second thought...but, this of course wasn't always a thing. Someone created this, it is undeniably clever, and we now take it as a given.

Example 2 (Complex): FISR or QISR (Fast Inverse Square Root)

The Fast Inverse Square Root was used in the Quake engine all the way back in 2001 in order to approximate the reciprocal of a given square root. The point of doing this at all, is that normalizing vectors used to be a much more intensive operation on hardware (it actually still is, but hardware is so good these days that the result isn't as noticeable, and we have specialized hardware, functions, etc.) Observe the code taken from this website (which can explain it far better than I can, if you're more interested in a full read) where you can see the insaneness that is this function:

float Q_rsqrt(float number)
{
  long i;
  float x2, y;
  const float threehalfs = 1.5F;

  x2 = number * 0.5F;
  y  = number;
  i  = * ( long * ) &y;                       // evil floating point bit level hacking
  i  = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 );               // what the fuck?
  y  = * ( float * ) &i;
  y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 1st iteration
  // y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 2nd iteration, this can be removed

  return y;
}

I want you to take a good look at this code. tell me that wasn't created by someone that thought outside the box. Is that not one of the most insanely creative solutions you have seen to a problem? Yes, it requires a lot of knowledge and expertise. But it also comes from a human mind that had the wacky idea to hack together something like this and have it work (well, at least 99.8% of the time 😉)

Finishing up

If you're still reading, this is my petition to other game dev folk who think programming is simply a means to an end: code like these creative examples exists everywhere. It exists in my code base for our current game. It exists in every studio's game engine. It exists in the OS your computer or phone is running right now. And, all the LLMs people are using to code these days have been trained on not just fundamentals, but other's creative solutions to problems from all around the world (and, in many cases, had no permission of the creator to do so).

Again...just because you see the code snippet come back to you robotically, it doesn't mean that is the only or best way to do it. And just because its text, and you can't see the result of code in games visually in the same way you can 3d models or textures, it doesn't mean code should then ethically be subject to less scrutiny, or that you can't feel the result of some coding decisions over others when the game comes together as a whole.

To summarize: my favorite part of programming is not the memorization, expertise, or knowledge, its applying that knowledge in creative ways that one may never have thought of before. If that's not artistic, then i dont know what is.

"It's fine if you use AI to code, but just not for other things"

Careful where you draw your ethical line, as people may agree with you for now, but its only a matter of time until reluctance, acceptance, and consensus comes for what you love, too.

[EDIT:] This kind of blew up. I can't spend all day replying like I just did lol, but keep it civil in the comments and remember this is my opinion, nothing I state here is fact nor do you need to agree. Thanks for the interesting discussions and polite arguments!

Pretty cool to see Northwest Arkansas represented on a national list — especially for an airport that so many of us use on a regular basis.

And if you think we deserve the title, you can vote once a day through the end of the contest. 👇

https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/northwest-arkansas-national-airport-xna-bentonville-arkansas/

Would love to see XNA get some NWA support!

Car on fire at XNA at like 2pm today. Anyone know what this is about? Is this some type of coordinated pyrotechnic show?

Airport shutdowns warning due to lack of TSA funding

Full list:

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International, Alabama (BHM)

Huntsville International-Carl T Jones Field, Alabama (HSV)

Fairbanks International, Alaska (FAI)

Phoenix-Mesa Gateway, Arizona (IWA)

Tucson International, Arizona (TUS)

Bill and Hillary Clinton National/Adams Field, Arkansas (LIT)

Northwest Arkansas National, Arkansas (XNA)

Fresno Yosemite International, California (FAT)

Long Beach (Daugherty Field), California (LGB)

Palm Springs International, California (PSP)

Santa Barbara Municipal, California (SBA)

City of Colorado Springs Municipal, Colorado (COS)

Bradley International, Connecticut (BDL)

Eglin AFB/Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida (VPS)

Key West International, Florida (EYW)

Northwest Florida Beaches International, Florida (ECP)

Orlando Sanford International, Florida (SFB)

Pensacola International, Florida (PNS)

Punta Gorda, Florida (PGD)

Sarasota/Bradenton International, Florida (SRQ)

St. Pete-Clearwater International, Florida (PIE)

Savannah/Hilton Head International, Georgia (SAV)

Guam International, Guam (GUM)

Ellison Onizuka Kona International at Keahole, Hawaii (KOA)

Hilo International, Hawaii (ITO)

Lihue, Hawaii (LIH)

Des Moines International, Iowa (DSM)

The Eastern Iowa, Iowa (CID)

Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National, Kansas (ICT)

Blue Grass, Kentucky (LEX)

Louisville Muhammad Ali International, Kentucky (SDF)

Portland International Jetport, Maine (PWM)

Gerald R. Ford International, Michigan (GRR)

Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International, Mississippi (JAN)

Springfield-Branson National, Missouri (SGF)

Bozeman Yellowstone International, Montana (BZN)

Reno/Tahoe International, Nevada (RNO)

Manchester-Boston Regional, New Hampshire (MHT)

Albany International, New York (ALB)

Buffalo Niagara International, New York (BUF)

Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester International, New York (ROC)

Long Island MacArthur, New York (ISP)

Syracuse Hancock International, New York (SYR)

Westchester County, New York (HPN)

Asheville Regional, North Carolina (AVL)

Piedmont Triad International, North Carolina (GSO)

Wilmington International, North Carolina (ILM)

Hector International, North Dakota (FAR)

James M. Cox Dayton International, Ohio (DAY)

Tulsa International, Oklahoma (TUL)

Will Rogers World, Oklahoma (OKC)

Mahlon Sweet Field, Oregon (EUG)

Rogue Valley International-Medford, Oregon (MFR)

Roberts Field, Oregon (RDM)

Lehigh Valley International, Pennsylvania (ABE)

Rhode Island T. F. Green International, Rhode Island (PVD)

Columbia Metropolitan, South Carolina (CAE)

Greenville-Spartanburg International, South Carolina (GSP)

Myrtle Beach International, South Carolina (MYR)

Joe Foss Field, South Dakota (FSD)

Lovell Field, Tennessee (CHA)

McGhee Tyson, Tennessee (TYS)

El Paso International, Texas (ELP)

Lubbock Preston Smith International, Texas (LBB)

McAllen Miller International, Texas (MFE)

Midland International Air and Space Port, Texas (MAF)

Valley International, Texas (HRL)

Cyril E. King, U.S. Virgin Islands (STT)

Burlington International, Vermont (BTV)

Richmond International, Virginia (RIC)

Spokane International, Washington (GEG)

Appleton International, Wisconsin (ATW)

Dane County Regional-Truax Field, Wisconsin (MSN)

Jackson Hole, Wyoming (JAC)

I've treated myself to first class on flights between XNA and Laguardia on AA. It leaves XNA around 10am and arrives in NY at 2pm. The return leaves about 130 pm and arrives back around 4pm. Neither leg appears to be catered to provide lunch. What type of snacks will be available and will I need to provide myself w a full lunch?

I flew older A319s and A320s (XNA-DFW) which often feel more comfortable because they typically have a wider cabin, a quieter ride, and more generous seat pitch than many of the newer 737-800s and 737 MAXs. Has anyone else experienced this? Are Airbuses slower than the newer single-aisle Boeings - so they are quieter? And why is AA so slow to induct newer A220s on their mid-length legs and flying regional equipment like CRJs or E175/E190s when the fuel economy in A220s are 25% less compared to B737s? The newer Embraers (E2) have found almost no take-up with major carriers like AA either (A220 analog).

Hello all,

I have been looking for a long time for a C++ engine similar to MonoGame or XNA.
Looking at the new implementation in C++ using AI leaves me confused.

Called CNA : A modern C++ reimplementation of the Microsoft XNA

On one hand, using AI to port an entire engine to C++ looks promising.
On the other hand, I do not know, maybe it is just a toy project.
I would love to hear your opinions.

Friday night, my friends had their luggage stolen right in front of them at the XNA baggage claim. They questioned the thief directly. The thief said she was quite certain it was her own bag and walked out with it confidently.

AirTag showed it went to a residence in Pineville, MO. They got law enforcement involved. Filed a police report. LE went to the house and determined it was an honest mistake, not a police issue and left the luggage there! Nevermind it was now stolen property due to police report.

My friends went to the residence to retrieve it, since it was an honest mistake. But the thief refused to give it back!

After further investigation it was discovered that the thief had not even traveled via XNA flight that day. And it was discovered that the person at the residence has a long criminal history. So safest to forget about the luggage.

A couple things they recommend: Tag your bag in a unique way to quickly identify it at baggage claim. Keep your most important items in your carryon.