Hello,<p>
Playing Need For Speed 2, I noticed a very high performance on Intel P233 MMX without 3-D display card. However, playing Need For Speed 3 and writing my own Direct3D applications I had to use 320x240x16 resolutions to get *normal* frame rate. <br>
Later, I noticed that NFS2 doesn't use Direct3D API at all. Instead, it uses it's own 3-D engine and DirectDraw to blit. NFS3 and my applications use Direct3D and so the performance is *very* low. The big question is, why did Microsoft say that Direct3D is a world-top performance??? I know that in order to get a high performance, I need a 3-D card, but not all players (and for them I develop my game) have a superb 3-D card at home! This entire topic confuses many graphics developers under Win32...<p>
Alexander Levin.

First of all, you heard it from Microsoft.. if their lips are moving, you know they're lying...<br>
DirectX, Direct3D, the Win32 API, are all, by nature, not the fasted tools the world has ever known.<br>
By interfacing with the Win95/98 OS and being as "User friendly" as possible, they sacrifice performance.<br>
As always, the best method to get great perfomance is talking to the hardware itself. Regrettably, Microsoft<br>
is making this more and more difficult, as Win95/98 becomes more instrusive, for example, the fact that only<br>
VXDs have Ring 0 access (unless you know how to set it yourself... ;))<br>
To complicate the situation, you typically have to pay $$$$ to get the SDK that details what ports to what,<br>
and that's for every piece of hardware!<p>



URL:http://acheronx.ml.org/home/

I dont use ANY Win32API, but the reason is NOT that I want to go directly to the hardware.<br>
I like the way SDK's like GGI or _some_ GL-implimentations is coded, where you have a common 'wapper', that has drivers for several API's,<br>
and later in runtime detects the fastes API. That makes the code very portable, and easily updated for new drivers/hardware.<br>
When you code, you KNOW, that even is you change computer and OS, your program will still work a year after, and probably with better speed. <p>
<br>
: First of all, you heard it from Microsoft.. if their lips are moving, you know they're lying...<br>
: DirectX, Direct3D, the Win32 API, are all, by nature, not the fasted tools the world has ever known.<br>
: By interfacing with the Win95/98 OS and being as "User friendly" as possible, they sacrifice performance.<br>
: As always, the best method to get great perfomance is talking to the hardware itself. Regrettably, Microsoft<br>
: is making this more and more difficult, as Win95/98 becomes more instrusive, for example, the fact that only<br>
: VXDs have Ring 0 access (unless you know how to set it yourself... ;))<br>
: To complicate the situation, you typically have to pay $$$$ to get the SDK that details what ports to what,<br>
: and that's for every piece of hardware!<p>