I havn't been here fore quite a while. I used to visit this site quite a bit. However I have had this problem with DirectX that I haven't been able to fix, and it is really frustrating me. I feel like I should program only text adventures sometimes. Anyway one day my computer just all of a sudden ran directdraw programs (of any kind) at 1/4 their normal speed, or worse. At first I thought it was something wrong with my game that I was working on, but it turned out that all of the directdraw progams were this way. I have updated the video card, the video drivers, the ram, and the operating system but nothing works. (The problems happened before I got Windows XP) But what I think is strange is that the programs written using DX8 still go fine. I am thinking that the computer is checking the direct-draw routines to make sure they are safe, where our video card takes care of the 3d graphics. But it still doesn't make any sense.