VBGamer

On the subject of speed I forgot to mention that Close Approach is just compiled to P-Code. Compiling to Native code didn't give us much extra speed and wasn't worth the extra file size. This supports the idea that for simple 3D games, if you are using a fast underlying 3D accelerated engine (e.g. Direct3D) in the way it is supposed to be used, then the speed impact related to your choice of language for your game code can sometimes be quite minor. This also fits well with the VB/database analogy, i.e. a C++ front end to a SQL server database isn't necessarily going to get the data out any quicker than a VB front end to a SQL server database - the real speed improvements come from looking at how the underlying database engine is used (data, tables, indexes, stored procedures etc) and how you interact with the database engine. Likewise for 3D work, the real speed improvements come from looking at how you use the 3D engine (choice of APIs, textures, low-polygons, etc).