I think you should try doing something in BlitzMax first to see for yourself what the speed is like. It seems like you're suffering from being `new to it` and instead of finding out, are asking questions of other people. I don't mean to be harsh by saying that - just that you need to see for yourself or you wont be convinced anyway.
In my opinion you will find that max can easily give you 4 layers of texturing plus 100's of enemies with sound and music no problem, so long as you have a sort of mid-range gfx card. I have an NVidea GeForce4 and would say that it could easily manage that kind of a game, in terms of the graphics throughput, and especially at such a low resolution. It could probably do it at 800x600.
In my opinion you will find that max can easily give you 4 layers of texturing plus 100's of enemies with sound and music no problem, so long as you have a sort of mid-range gfx card. I have an NVidea GeForce4 and would say that it could easily manage that kind of a game, in terms of the graphics throughput, and especially at such a low resolution. It could probably do it at 800x600.