Has anybody done a MAX v Blitz 2D speed comparison?
Several. Neither are particularly conclusive tho'.The short version is that BlitzMAX has more optimizations, and a better compiler, so "raw" operation output should be faster, if for no other reason, then because of better register utilization.
Things that rely heavily on stdc functionality could be slower, depening on how you use them.
Also keep in mind that OOP generally adds a slight overhead.
The question you really should be asking yourself however is a different one: Who really cares? Most people favor short development times over raw speed anyway, and in BlitzMAX game development time is rediculously fast. So what if it only runs at 170 fps (as opposed to 200)?