Las probabilidades de la lotería

De vez en cuando compro un boleto de lotería, lo reconozco. ¿Por qué? Pues no lo sé. Supongo que como todos, por aquello de... "y si toca"... Supongo que todos caemos en la (falsa) idea de que a alguien le tiene que tocar. Y lo cierto, es que eso no es cierto. 😊 Mucha gente nos hemos tomado...

Azure IoT Device Client SDK v 1.2.0 doesn't work with Xamarin Android apps

Several hours lost trying to deal with a connectivity issue between our Android app and a test Azure IoT server, just to find out that the problem was just having update the Client SDK nuget package (https://github.com/Azure/azure-iot-sdk-csharp) The SendEventAsync seemed to never finish the task when using MQTT, and it threw an exception when AMQP (something related to Amqp constructor could...

World Enduro Rally

I'm happy to share the result of the work I've been doing in the last months: yesterday, World Enduro Rally came to light. The game is available for XBoxOne, Steam, Android and Windows. You can get all the details at its Facebook page, or download directly here: Hope you like ...

Como mejorar tu protección contra ciberataques como WannaCry, en 3 sencillos pasos

Nota: Consejos genéricos para Windows 8 y 10. Podría no aplicar a versiones anteriores de Windows. Esto es solo un consejo que ayuda a mejorar la seguridad, y no garantiza ningún tipo de invulnerabilidad a éste u otro tipo de ataques. El autor de este blog no es experto en seguridad y no ofrece ninguna...

Manually copying Unity's APK and OBB files to an Android device for testing

When developing an Android game that is meant to be published through the PlayStore, there's a limitation regarding the maximum file size of the APK. It currently can't exceed 100 MB. The thing is that games usually go beyond that limit. To deal with that, Google offers the so called APK Expansion...

Happy 10th Birthday, GraphicDNA !

Last week this blog turned 10!! Can't believe how fast time goes by. During this period, I founded my company, I had the honor to be awarded as DirectX MVP (4 years in a row), I became part of Microsoft / RARE team, and then I spent some of the best years I had in the industry, working as Associate...

Custom MainLoop in C# / UWP applications with DirectX (SharpDX) with unlocked frame rates (beyond 60 Hz)

When you want to write a game or a 3D application in C# using SharpDX, and you want it to be UWP, there is little information about how to correctly handle the basics of the main loop. All examples I found were based on the interop between XAML and DirectX, but if you go that path, you´ll need to rely on the CompositingTarget.Rendering event to handle your updates and renders, which lets all the...

[UWP] Unable to activate Windows Store app - The app didn't start

Today, I've been struggling with a Visual Studio 2015 deploy error for a while. When trying to debug a C# - UWP application, I kept receiving the following error upon application activation: Places like this have information about other people finding the same error. Some of them even re-installed...

Using RacingWheels and other kind of devices in Windows.Gaming.Input

Now that UWP (Universal Windows Platform) is out (and apparently the way to go for video games), a decent Input API was more than needed, to be able to use controllers like racing wheels. And that API is Windows.Gaming.Input. I already talked about this topic last month, but no matter how hard I tried to make my Logitech G27 be recognized by the API, it simply didn't work. And it was hard to do something...

Quiero trabajar haciendo videojuegos ¿Qué tengo que hacer?

Hace algún tiempo, un buen amigo me pidió si podía asesorar a una alumna suya, que quería orientar su carrera profesional hacia el sector de la creación de Videojuegos.  Más concretamente, le gustaría trabajar desarrollando software (ingeniería) en alguno de los estudios realmente grandes de la industria (casi siempre situados en el extranjero).  Dado que es una industria bastante...

Steering Wheel Support in Forza Motorsport 6: Apex (and any other UWP application)

Since Turn10 released the Forza Motorsport 6: Apex demo, there has been quite a lot of noise, rumors, and opinions about the lack of support for steering wheels like Logitech G27, G29, Fanatec, and so on. Sites like this or even the official Forza forums have tough debates about the issue. Some...

Cannot find type System.MarshalByRefObject error in UWP app

Playing and learning with UWPs today, I found a strange error when compiling with VS 2015: Xaml Internal Error error WMC9999: Cannot find type System.MarshalByRefObject It's a bit misleading, but one can easily see that it's related to DLL references. After dealing with it for a while, I realized some of my Nuget packages were not up to date. Updating them fixed the issue. More precisely,...

DirectInput, XInput, Windows.Gaming.Input, y ahora qué? Forza Motor Sport 6

Desde que supe que Forza Motorsport 6 iba a ser una UWP (app universal), y por tanto iba a tener una versión Windows 10, estaba muy expectante para ver qué pasaba con un tema muy concreto: DirectInput.  Microsoft lleva años dando bandazos con determinadas tecnologías de juegos (todos recordamos...