I am looking at replacing my own engine with a 3D one, one that uses quads to draw bitmaps etc.

I know there are several sets of components out there, but has anyone had experience writting a 2D game using any of them and can you recommend one above another for both fps and ease of use etc?

Using DirectDraw is just proving too slow. For simple games it's fine, but when you have 200+ creatures on screen at 1024 x 768 and add in some effects using alpha blending etc it just hogs the CPU and GFX card. I am sure if I gut the DDraw stuff and replace it with a good 3D engine the FPS should be significantly improved.

I have played around with DelphiX (hardware) but it doesn't seem to use Direct3D to draw the bitmaps? Am I right in thinking that?