Free with XNA Premium Membership?

#1 TGE will not really do anything for you with TX. Some of the concepts are similar however thats it.

Yes you get a binary version of TX with your XNA fee, however it is an older version and does not come with source code. I'd get the source version if you are serious about using it.

#2 To be clear, you can download and use TX for free anyway. The only thing an XNA premium membership gets you is access to the gui builders (of which TX3D's is almost completely broken and unusable). I also believe I read that they will be removing this tie in with XNA at some point.

Surprising that you would have to buy TGE given that it's no longer available. A binary version of T3D would be far better.

#3 The XNA version includes the binary assemblies. The version that you purchase here includes the complete C# source code.

#4 David, is any of what I said no longer true?

#5 We have not hosted the TX binary version for some time. It is hosted on the XNA site for members. It includes the binary assemblies for 2D and 3D in a single package.

I'm not sure what John's plans are for GUI's with the product.

As for purchasing TGE, some institutions are still teaching with it due to licensing and curriculum decisions and have already negotiated terms with educational licensing.

#6 Thanks for replies everyone. So the source code is there to allow me to edit the engine correct?

#7 That is correct. It's also there to help you see what's going on inside the engine, how it ticks. Definitely a necessity if you're making a serious game. There's also a lot of comments which can help you work out why something is done a particular way. Sure, there could be a lot more comments, but I've found the ones that are there to be useful.

#8 Thanks. I really appreciate all the feed back. I'm currently in school for Video Game Programming and Simulation and starting a class on modding which is the class I had to get TGE for. I'm really wanting to make games with XNA but am still new to programming so trying to decide if I should wait before becoming a premium member of xna so I could use TX (can't afford the source code at the moment) and the other premium user content or if it would benefit me now to get them.

#9 No reason to wait. Grab the demo! Get familiar with all the concepts, make a few demo apps. Your license to the builder will expire after 30 days (that's no problem, we're getting a completely new editor (the Torque3D editor) very shortly anyway, and like I said, the current one doesn't work too well, so you're better off coding it for now imho, unless the builder works for you, because it just might...).

There is no restriction on the amount of time you can use the binary to make your games. Heck, you can even sell your games made with demo binary (unless that rule has changed but I've heard nothing about it changing). By the time you've played around with it and have learnt more about XNA and C# you might be getting ready to dive into the source.

Or just go the other way, grab XNA and run through all the tutorials on the creators.xna.com site. There is a heck of a lot of info there as well as talented people (like Shawn Hargreaves, make sure you read his blog).

Either way, THERE IS NO EXCUSE for you not to be learning XNA right now!

#10 Thanks again Trent! I think I'll download the trial version like you said so I can get a feel for it. Also do you have a link to Shawn's blog?

#11 http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar/

Make sure you go down the archive on the right hand side, there is a wealth of info in there.