The main bottle neck is GPU not so much CPU. Then you have to consider the size of each particle, if you're scaling, rotating, alpha, even blend mode makes a difference. Squeezing a little bit of speed from an array system or compiled C code helps, but perhaps not much. I have an old computer with a good Geforce card that has frame rates faster than a brand spanking new Vista Laptop (DX or GL mode).
I'm guessing my MGE system v.s. YahFree or ImaginaryHuman's or Grey's system would all come very close, because we're all at the mercy of the built in gpu engine.
The only way one of our particle engines could really outperform another substantially would be if we coded our own low level batch system in DX7 or OpenGL and even that may not yield much better results depending what you're doing. And if you need that much of a performance increase you're probably dealing with a hardcore audience who will more than likely have a modern gpu anyway.
I've downloaded particle demos, sprite demos, game demos, in Blitzmax the past few months and not one has really out performed the other as far as rendering speed. I did see a few OpenGL only demos that did some cool stuff, but who wants to code a game that requires a specific GPU Driver?
I'm guessing my MGE system v.s. YahFree or ImaginaryHuman's or Grey's system would all come very close, because we're all at the mercy of the built in gpu engine.
The only way one of our particle engines could really outperform another substantially would be if we coded our own low level batch system in DX7 or OpenGL and even that may not yield much better results depending what you're doing. And if you need that much of a performance increase you're probably dealing with a hardcore audience who will more than likely have a modern gpu anyway.
I've downloaded particle demos, sprite demos, game demos, in Blitzmax the past few months and not one has really out performed the other as far as rendering speed. I did see a few OpenGL only demos that did some cool stuff, but who wants to code a game that requires a specific GPU Driver?