Table of Contents

Upgrading MonoGame from 3.8.x to latest

A guide on upgrading a MonoGame v3.8 project to the current 3.8.4.1+ releases of MonoGame.

Upgrading existing projects from earlier 3.8 releases should be straightforward for most platforms.

Note

If you are migrating/upgrading from XNA or MonoGame 3.7 or earlier then check the dedicated guides for those actions before returning here.

  • The critical difference from pre 3.8.2 builds, is that the MGCB Editor is no longer a global .NET tool and the MGCB editor is now included as part of the specific project through the use of the dotnet tooling configuration dotnet-tools.json file located in the .config folder in your solution/project.

  • The major difference from 3.8.4 onwards is that we recommend using .NET 9 in your client project, but it is not mandatory, we are also simplifying the csproj configuration to reduce management for developers from 3.8.4.1.

    For iOS/Android however, DotNet 9 at a minimum is Mandatory, see details here.

You can follow the environment setup tutorial to make sure that you are not missing any components.

Note

If you are using Visual Studio 2022, we recommend that you use the MonoGame extension which helps with accessing the MGCB editor without the need of CLI commands.

The process of updating your project should be fairly quick and painless without having to change your code or your content project.

Contents

Updating the DotNet Target Framework

Modern MonoGame projects now use the DotNet framework (older projects used to rely on the NetCore/NetFramework libraries). As MonoGame has used DotNet project templates since 3.8.x, you only need to update the TargetFramework element of any csproj files referencing MonoGame libraries, namely:

  • Replace any <TargetFramework> entries with the following:
<TargetFramework>net9.0</TargetFramework>
Note

Using DotNet 9 is only a recommendation, you can use any version of DotNet (from 8.0 and above) so long as it supports the MonoGame DotNet 8 dependency. This includes the upcoming DotNet 10 LTS.

Make sure to update any and all projects in your solution, especially you have a multi-project solution similar to those in the MonoGame.Samples

Update MonoGame references

Make sure you update the MonoGame references to the latest version, this can be achieved by either:

  • Editing the csproj files that reference MonoGame to the latest version.

    Note

    The MonoGame templates set the Version number as Version="3.8.*", this means that it will use the LATEST public version of MonoGame (not including preview releases) that is available.

    However, this does mean your tools configuration can become out of sync with your project and potentially cause issue.

  • Use the Updating NuGet package dependencies documentation as part of the "Preview Release installation instructions", which states you should run the following commands (the example is for DesktopGL, use other platforms accordingly):

    dotnet add package MonoGame.Framework.DesktopGL -v 3.8.4.1
dotnet add package MonoGame.Content.Builder.Task -v 3.8.4.1
    Note

    The MonoGame.Content.Builder.Task is only needed for client projects and not libraries.

This will ensure your project is using the intended version of MonoGame.

Important

Always ensure your dotnet-tools.json version matches any updates to the version of MonoGame you are using, as detailed in the next section.

Add/Update dotnet-tools.json Configuration

MonoGame DotNet projects currently Require DotNet tools configuration to be able to locate and run the MGCB editor which is installed locally per project (preventing issues when working with multiple projects using different versions of MonoGame).

Important

The MGCB Editor is no longer a .NET global tool, and does not need to be installed or registered separately. When migrating from 3.8.0, it is recommended that you uninstall the global versions of the tools. You can accomplish that with these commands:

dotnet tool uninstall dotnet-mgcb -g
dotnet tool uninstall dotnet-2mgfx -g
dotnet tool uninstall dotnet-mgcb-editor -g

You can either copy the config folder with the configuration from a new project template (e.g. dotnet new mgdesktopgl -o <project name>), or alternatively you can do the following:

  • Create a new folder in the root of your project named .config.
  • Add a new file called dotnet-tools.json and replace its contents with the following:
{
  "version": 1,
  "isRoot": true,
  "tools": {
    "dotnet-mgcb": {
      "version": "3.8.4.1",
      "commands": [
        "mgcb"
      ]
    },
    "dotnet-mgcb-editor": {
      "version": "3.8.4.1",
      "commands": [
        "mgcb-editor"
      ]
    },
    "dotnet-mgcb-editor-linux": {
      "version": "3.8.4.1",
      "commands": [
        "mgcb-editor-linux"
      ]
    },
    "dotnet-mgcb-editor-windows": {
      "version": "3.8.4.1",
      "commands": [
        "mgcb-editor-windows"
      ]
    },
    "dotnet-mgcb-editor-mac": {
      "version": "3.8.4.1",
      "commands": [
        "mgcb-editor-mac"
      ]
    }
  }
}
Note

Please note that you cannot use the 3.8.* wildcard in the dotnet-tools.json file (tool versions have to be fully qualified). We strongly recommend that the versions match the MonoGame version referenced in your .csproj (if you are using the * wildcard, make sure that they do not end up mismatching if the NuGet packages are updated without you noticing).

The file is the same regardless of which platform / target you are intending to use. If you have a multi-project solution, you only need a SINGLE configuration at the root of the project for all client projects.

Remove RestoreDotNetTools section from csproj

From 3.8.4.1 and above, the RestoreDotNetTools section is no longer required in client project csproj files, as the processing is now handled within the MonoGame deliverables.

Note

Earlier versions of MonoGame, e.g. 3.8.0 do not have this configuration in the project template, if your csproj does not have a RestoreDotNetTools element, you can safely ignore this section.

  <Target Name="RestoreDotNetTools" BeforeTargets="Restore">
    <Message Text="Restoring dotnet tools" Importance="High" />
    <Exec Command="dotnet tool restore" />
  </Target>
Tip

The XML has changed over versions with various messages and layout, but the section to remove is always titled Name="RestoreDotNetTools"

Simply remove this section safely from any and all csproj files located in your solution that are dependent on MonoGame.

iOS/iPadOS, and Android Considerations

DotNet 9 is MANDATORY for iOS and Android due to platform requirements, as well as the following configurations:

  • MonoGame 3.8.4.1 is REQUIRED to comply with the Google Policies on 16kb pages and other affordances.
  • The Android targetSdkVersion in the AndroidManifest.xml MUST be a minimum "35" to comply with the latest Google policies. The templates set the minimum to 21 which is safe, only the TARGET SDK is critical.
  • iOS MUST use a minimum SupportedOSPlatformVersion of 12.2 in both the csproj and in the info.plist configuration for the project.
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