Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
Simple. Wait just a few more weeks and I'll have the source ready that will allow you to do this in Direct3D via a lockable backbuffer.

Anything GDI is going to be too slow.

The only drawback to writing directly to a surface/memory is that you must lock the buffer which degrades performance and then you must again unlock the buffer prior to presenting the scene.

So be patient and I'll have some source here shortly. Right now I've got some people testing it and coding inside of the framework to see if it is going to serve its purpose.

I coded it just for people like you who want to do graphics but are not sure how to get DirectGraphics up and running.

PM me and I'll send you what I have thus far along with instructions on how the classes are designed to be used.
You said that anything GDI is slow. If so, then windows would be dragging along, since the whole interface is drawn with GDI, if I remember right. Which would also make sense if SMurf is right, because I installed Windows XP on my other computer and it ran horrribly slow until I installed my real graphics drivers.