The Speed of Managed DirectX

It seems that at least once a week I'm answering questions directly regarding the performance of managed code and Managed DirectX in particular. One of the more common questions I hear is some version of “Is it as fast as unmanaged code?”

Obviously, in a general sense, it isn't. Regardless of the quality of the Managed DirectX API, it still has to run through the same DirectX API that the unmanaged code does. There is naturally going to be a slight overhead, but does it have a large negative impact on the majority of applications? Of course it does not. No one is suggesting that one of the top-of-the-line polygon pushing games coming out today (say, Half Life 2 or Doom 3) should be written in Managed DirectX, but ...

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