Before I begin brabbling about my problems, first the good news: The DirectX April 2006 SDK came out yesterday. There is more new Direct3D 10 Beta stuff and more samples for XACT (thats for audio creation), etc. This is the news for Managed DirectX:
Managed DirectX 2.0 Beta Update
Microsoft is working on a new managed gaming framework which will target Windows and Xbox 360 known as the XNA Framework. The majority of what exists today as the Managed DirectX 2.0 beta will become a key component of the XNA Framework. Managed DirectX 2.0 will continue to ship as a beta in subsequent SDK releases of the DirectX SDK until a beta of the XNA Framework is made available. While we are striving to deliver a smooth transition from code written to use the Managed DirectX 2.0 beta, Microsoft can make no guarantees about the API compatibility between the Managed DirectX 2.0 beta and the upcoming graphics API’s in the XNA Framework. Microsoft will be providing guidance about the API differences as well as migration assistance as more information becomes available regarding the XNA Framework.
The following is an initial list of known changes which will exist between the Managed DirectX 2.0 beta and what Microsoft will deliver with the XNA Framework. This list will be updated as more information is available, and is as always subject to change.
- Managed XACT and managed XInput will replace managed DirectSound and managed DirectInput respectively. Managed DirectSound and managed DirectInput will no longer be available in the XNA Framework. However, DirectSound and DirectInput will still be available for developers who choose to use Managed DirectX 1.1.
- Managed DxDiag will not be available in the XNA Framework. DxDiag support will still be available for developers using Managed DirectX 1.1.
- Microsoft is actively investigating how to bring forward functionality from Direct 3DX 9.0 into the XNA Framework. D3DX9 will still be supported in MDX 1.1
- Please note that Managed DirectX 1.1 is fully compatible with the .NET Framework 2.0.
The XNA Framework will be supported on several architectures (including 64-bit) for both Windows and Xbox 360.
So what does this mean for us fellow Managed DirectX programmers? First of all: Forget MDX2, it will never get to any final version. If you need DirectX in .NET just use MDX1 for now. The XNA framework will replace MDX2 in the future, but it isn't here yet. And to confuse us .NET programmers even more there is now a managed Direct3D 10 wrapper (but like native Direct3D 10 it requires Vista to run). For me this means I will stay with MDX1 until XNA becomes useable.
Another thing I find very annoying is the fact that there is still no documentation for MDX2 and MDX1 is still in the "August 2005 state". I hope that's going to be better with XNA ... don't really know what Microsoft expect developers to do with a beta version like MDX2 with no documentation at all. Want to read more discussions about this DirectX release? Then check out this post from David Weller yesterday at gamedev.net.
Ok back to the topic about Quo Vadis: Sorry for posting so late, but I wanted to post my impressions and pics of the Quo Vadis last week after we drove back. Sadly my handy (mda pro) decided to stop working and I couldn't charge it up again. When connecting to the PC with USB the connection was only available for a couple of seconds and then everything went dead. Today I finally opened up the device and found out that the whole usb connector was broken and actually fell of the main board in my PDA. Tomorrow I will try to mess everything up by soldering it back together. If I'm not careful that's it for the device.
Anyways, the problem was I couldn't get the photos back and I have no idea who called my since last week and I don't care anymore ^^ today I got some of the pics on the memory card back to my PC with help of a card reader (I don't have one). But most of the pics are missing, I only got a few boring ones ^^ | 
