I wouldn't think that there would be too much difference between Delphi and VC++. The only comparison I remember is Jake's Code Efficiency Challenge, though that's not 3d specific (computationally intensive stuff like finding prime numbers, etc.). It's getting old now - most entries are for VC6 and Delphi 5. The results for the challenges put VC6 and Delphi 5 at the same speed and I seem to recall that Delphi 5 entries won one or two challenges.

As long as you know a little bit about how to optimize Delphi code then the speed should be just fine. The underlying computation won't be significantly faster or slower and most of your bottleneck will be from the 3d card itself. I would be surprised if you didn't have more than enough grunt from a Delphi game to do what you need. Hell, you could always dip into asm for your bottlenecks.

Plus, Delphi has some kick-ass 3d engines such as GLScene, a3d and GLXtreem.

I think that you'd be best asking Eric Grange or Tom Nuydens about this, since they have a heap of experience with 3d in Delphi. More to the point, though -- don't worry about performance yet. It's likely that the bottlenecks will be in small, specific places in your code. You should choose a language based on how productive you think you will be , other factors being roughly equal. If you think that you will be productive in Delphi then use it, else use something else.

[edited by - Alimonster on June 5, 2003 4:38:56 AM]

Not too many commercial games are made with Delphi, unfortunately. The trouble with Delphi is that it''s not especially portable (Windows and Linux and that''s your whack). This rules out consoles, of course, which means that many games companies aren''t interested. If you''re going for PC then it''s nice. (Incidentally, the Free Pascal Compiler supports plenty more OSs than Windows and Linux, though I''ve not tried it yet.)

There have been one or two games -- Age of Wonders 1 and 2, for example. There are also some very nice looking things out there that could be of commercial quality (e.g. this, judging from the lush screenshots). Most people using Delphi are hobbyists, though, since writing games in Delphi is pretty easy and enjoyable with all the component sets. There are a few more commercial games that I should remember but can''t -- in the meantime, note that there is some nice shareware made in Delphi (which is probably where the Delphi games market has most games).

If you just want a basic window then remember that NeHe has Delphi ports of his OpenGL code -- check on the left sidebar of the main page or go to one of the tutorials and find the port, if available, at the bottom of its page. Also, make sure that you take a look over at Delphi3d. The bloke who runs that site (Tom Nuydens) has a good OpenGL toolkit called DOT, which contains the most up-to-date and best gl headers you''ll find (gl.pas, glu.pas and glext.pas, I think), along with some the coolest OpenGL demos around for newer graphics cards. Delphi3d''s gl headers are much, much more comprehensive than the standard ones shipped with Delphi.

If you want to try Direct3d then you can have a look at Clootie''s conversion of the d3d headers and stuff. The advantage here is that you don''t need the SDK to develop dx apps - saving yourself a good 150megs of download time versus C++, which is nice for me (56K modem, sigh).

You''ll have to add the location of the .pas files to your library path once you''ve downloaded and extracted them. Go to the tools->environment options menu, select the library tab and press the ellipses (three dots [...]) button beside the first box, "library path". Type in the directory/directories in question and hit "add" after each one.

Once you''ve done that, just download a sample app or two and run ''em! The only other possible problem would be missing components - just install them normally (component->install component menu, hit the browse button beside the unit file name box, choose your .pas or .dcu file then okay everything away). Do this before opening the projects, if required, and only if the thing complains about not having certain components installed.

While you''re at it, think about customising the Delphi IDE (and don''t forget that you can dock stuff like the project manager and object inspector windows too!).