Canvas or Image Shift

I'm by no means an expert on this stuff, but I'd have to say, not necessarily. All pixmap operations are carried out in system memory, and so, should be pretty fast. The relatively slow part of the process is when the pixmap is transferred to the video card as a texture. So, as long as you can keep the transfers down to a minimum, you may be alright. It really depends on just how *much* data you're gonna be shifting around each frame.

All I can suggest is, suck it and see. :o)