DirectDraw, alpha blending

DDraw doesn''t do alpha blending, you must do it manually (Lock both source and dest textures, read both, mix, write, unlock). You end up having tons of code for various styles of mixing, for various texture formats, and for MMX vs. non-MMX CPUs.

Many people use D3D8 or 9 for 2D work to gain better accelaration, and more features.

And even in D3D Alpha Blending is a pain. Much, much, muuuuch less of a pain than in direct draw, but still a pain compared to other parts.

D3D isn''t that hard, it has helper functions out the yin-yang to make sure it isn''t. If you started with DDraw because it''s 2d, please look at d3d. If you started with DDraw because you would assume it''s simpler, I highly recommend just taking the added complexity, getting a book on D3D, and learning it. You''ll be happier in the end, even if a lot of the code is copy-and-pasted from the book.