Direct2D

[ize]

Ok. so i know it's not cutting-edge news but I was finally thinking about doing a little 2d project. After browsing through this site extensively and a couple of others the general opinion of members is to use 3d hardware acceleration to do 2d.

That's when i stumbled across this Link (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd370990(VS.85).aspx)

I only browsed quickly, but it seems like it could be a good thing (if someone cleverer than me ports the headers over ;)) I couldn't find a download link so have no idea if it's going to be Dx10 and above or what.

Anyone have any thoughts or opinions on this ???

[noeska]

I believed directx started as an hardware accelerated 2d environment and only later got 3d in various ways. Oh i should read better it uses 3d hardware for 2d acceleration.

Dont know if that is always faster as the 2d geometry has to be trianglulated first either on cpu or gpu even on directx.

If you only use bitmaps x by x pixels and place them on a quad as textures you can get a performance gain (no triangulation calculations needed then).

I personaly use OpenGL and lately i am experiment of rendering 2D vector graphics with OpenGL on 3d hardware. The triangulation is done using glu in software. http://www.delphigl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=69843#69843