Switching to Direct3D Mode = Massive Slowdown?

[Docilemouse]

Recently I opened an old project, which I had created solely using MMF2 Standard. I wanted to test some shaders it, so I switched from standard mode to "Direct3D 9." After I did that, however, The game slowed from its usual consistant 50 fps to about 20.

I thought HWA was supposed to speed up games and reduce slowdown. =/ Maybe I'm not completely clear on exactly what "Hardware Accelerated" means...

Anyway, what a kind soul care to explain to me what's causing this slowdown, and why the slowdown exists?

Please?

[UrbanMonk]

Perhaps you're using an extension that hasn't been converted to HWA yet?

[AndyH]

Yes, the likely cause is that an extension that has not been optimised to work with the HWA version is slowing down the game. Anything that messes with graphics, forcing the data to be pushed back and forth between video and standard RAM, is likely to be the culprit.

[Docilemouse]

Hmmm... Looks like you guys are right. I removed some of my extensions, and it greatly increased the speed.

Thanks for the answers.

[Docilemouse]

I hope it's not too obnoxious to revive this old topic, but is there any way to tell what extensions have been optimized for HWA and those which have not?

[Yves]

The graphical extensions that have been optimized are :

- Active System Box and Background System Box (don't use too many ASB with texts though, I think text is not really fast)
- Picture and Active Picture
- Particle Spray
- Perspective
- Viewport
- Speech Bubble
- Text Blitter

[Jax]

Happy birthday Yves!

[Yves]

Thanks

[Docilemouse]

Ah, Thanks very much for the reply, Yves. So will every extension eventually be optimized for HWA, or will it stay a more limited selection?

[Pixelthief]

Non-graphical extensions don't need to be optimized for HWA and will perform completely normally, since there is no difference for them, but only a certain set of graphical extensions will be optimized for HWA. Reasons they might not be optimized would be either if their creator has stopped updating them, or if its just not feasible for the extension, or if the object is just redundant with the HWA mode so much its not worth it.

For example, don't hold your breath for a lens object update.