XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Graphics Cards

So if you have a beat up old computer like I do and is planning on developing games in XNA Game Studio, you are most likely affected by this error .

After much frustration and hair-loss I figured out a solution. Apparently XNA 4.0 HiDef profile only works on graphics devices that support Direct X 10 and up, I have an ancient Geforce 6800 Go Ultra.

So the work around; click on your project's properties window and select the "Reach" profile. How simple is that?



Voila!

Creating your first XNA Game

So say you want to create your own game and you're looking for a good place to start, you've come to the right place. I am going to try to break this down to the best of my knowledge assuming that you have a little comprehension of the C# programming language. To get started you need to download and install the Windows Phone SDK, then download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools January 2011 Update and the Windows Phone Developer Tools Fix. (Note: According to Microsoft's website the January 2011 Update should only be applied after you've installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools.)

Once you've got Visual Studio installed and running click on File menu > New Project. From the list on the left
Give it a name and a location and Visual Studio should create a template for you. As it is you have a working game, although it may not do much. To run your game just hit F5 on the keyboard or click on Debug>Start Debugging. You should see a blue screen much like this:


Congratulations! You've got your first game running.