The April 2012 release of the Durango XDK from Microsoft contains the following new features, tools, and documentation.
For features that shipped in a previous Durango XDK release, see the What’s New document for that release.
The most recent release notes and Durango XDK updates can always be found on Durango Downloads on the Xbox Game Developer site. For access, log in with your ID and password on https://developer.xboxlive.com/; at the top of the page, point to Development, click Downloads, and then select Durango from the dropdown.
The Durango developer support group sends e-mail to Durango developers whenever a new Durango XDK is released. Also, you can check with your account manager for the latest information about upcoming Durango XDK releases.
Graphics
The Durango Alpha kit ships with a generic Direct3D 11 graphics driver provided by the manufacturer. This release includes a preview Durango-specific graphics driver developed by Microsoft. The driver has limited functionality in this release. See the release notes for details. Feedback on the Durango driver is requested through the Durango forum.
Intel’s Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) are now supported. For more information on AVX refer to Advanced Vector Extensions. DirectXMath supports AVX if XM_AVX_INTRINSICS is defined, which it is by default in most samples. Otherwise to turn on the extension set Enhanced Instruction Set to AVX in project properties.
/arch:AVX
Development Tools
There are now four Durango-specific Visual Studio templates, described in the Project Templates in Visual Studio for Xbox One Development section.
Several remote tools have been added or improved, and a new documentation section on these tools has been added: Development Environment Tools.
The xoka.exe tool that shipped with the February and March releases has been removed. The remote tools replace xoka.exe with equivalent functionality.
Xbox LIVE Authentication
This release adds a basic, developer-only mechanism for the acquisition of authorization tokens from Xbox LIVE. This support enables single sign-on and access to the Xbox LIVE RESTful web services that require user claims. Device claims and title claims are not available in this release. Any web service that requires those claims, including some elements of Xbox LIVE Services, will not treat the request as valid. See Xbox Service Authorization for details.
DirectXMath Updated
The DirectXMath library has been updated as follows: