The tests I did were about a year ago, and unfortunately I don't have them around any more (few system crashes and restores since then). Basically what I did was to setup a standard sprite animation using a normal paintbox. I then wrote the same code for Delphi, DWS II, and PS (basically a copy and paste job, as they all are close enough to the same). Used the default importers associated with PS and DWS II to create wrapper units and executed everything using a profiler (don't remember witch one). Comparison of time to call, # of times called, and etc was taken into account and DWS II's implementations (at that time) came up slower then Native or PS.

For the round I'm doing now, I have a simple interface that explains what a scripting engine should look like to my application. I can then create an object that implements that interface and comparasons are done with Eric G's sampleing profiler as well as recording system usage information.

For example with native code I can attain about 120 fps in software rendering (GDI) mode. I can get about 95 fps using PS, Python came in at 98 (not much difference, but had a higher load), MS Scripting Engine came in at a whopping 40 fps (all sarcasym intended), SAL 115 fps (but again too much complexity to use it right now).

This was all done with nothing more then having the scripting engine monitor the keyboard and then move the character appropriately. I also had 100 staged sprites moving on and off screen. Of course none of this will be in the final engine. It just wouldn't make sense to have litterly everything scripted, but I do plan on using the scripting engine for a majority of the work.

The other thing that bothers me about DWS II is the lack of support and updates over the past few years. I have to admit that when it first came out, I used it quite a bit. About a year ago I moved on, and have no plans on looking back unless something in DWS really jumps out at me.

In the end I'm at a split decision. In keeping the compo in mind I would use a pascal derivetive, but as I said I want people to mod it when I'm done. So another language is a must. More gammers are used to Python or LUA then pascal.