Is XNA a wrapper around DirectX?

Question

I would like to know what is the technology behind XNA. Basically I need to know if it is a higher abstract on the Direct X or something different or a combination of both.

Answer 1

Yes, at least on (native) Windows, it is mostly a wrapper around DirectX. It requires the DirectX runtime to work. For other platforms, this might vary.

Answer 2

Yes it wraps DirectX on Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone.

On windows its DirectX 9 32 bit, on Xbox its whatever the xbox DirectX version is - its a sort of DX9++ - it has several features from DX10 and some additional features.

I dont think anyone has really said what the phone wraps. WP8 supports DX11 style API feature level 9_3 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj714085(v=vs.105).aspx but I think in the WP7 days it was a little less well defined what XNA was actually wrapping.

XNA has some things that are very thin wrappers and others that are higher level constructs (e.g. Game, SpriteBatch, Content). If you want a very thin wrapper look at something like SharpDX

On non windows platforms, Mono.Game wraps various flavoursof OpenGL(ES)