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Is it possible to pack all the little .xnb files into one big file? Given the level of abstraction of the XNA Framework I though this would come out of the box but I can't find any well integrated solution.

So far the best candidate is XnaZip but in addition to having to compile the resources in a post-build event, and a little trouble porting the game to XBOX I have to rename all the references to resources I have already implemented.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Why do you have to rename references to your resources? After answering your question, I had a cursory glance at XnaZip; it seems like it should be a drop-in replacement -- aside from the missing System.IO.Compression namespace. \$\endgroup\$
    – Blair Holloway
    Feb 16, 2011 at 12:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ In the readme of the XnaZip project it says: 'After that you can load your objects like this: Texture2D earth = content.Load<Texture2d>(ResourceId.Earth);' But now that you mention maybe I misinterpreted it and means 'you may' instead of 'you have to'. I will give it a try. \$\endgroup\$
    – Cristian T
    Feb 16, 2011 at 14:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ Why do you want to pack these files together? \$\endgroup\$
    – PrinceCharles
    Jan 5, 2012 at 22:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ for easier distribution when you have tons of files and to hide internal resource names from plain sight \$\endgroup\$
    – Cristian T
    Jan 10, 2012 at 10:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PrinceCharles also keep in mind that copying one big file is much faster than copying many smaller ones (especially off of optical media). \$\endgroup\$
    – Jonathan Dickinson
    Feb 16, 2012 at 15:25

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It's possible, but you either have to:

  • Find a library that does it for you, or
  • implement it yourself.

XNA lets you do the latter by deriving from the ContentManager class and replacing the OpenStream method; in fact, the documentation explicitly says:

protected virtual Stream OpenStream (string assetName)

Opens a stream for reading the specified asset. Derived classes can replace this to implement pack files or asset compression.

In the override version of OpenStream, one would simply return a compatible Stream that read the requested asset data from a pack file, rather than opening a FileStream from disk.

The tricky part is that you have to actually build the pack file yourself, incorporating the xnb files output via the content build pipeline. You could build a Content Pipeline Extension to do this, or find some other method, depending on what your goals are.

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