Anyone have an idea if blt operation will include bit conversion on 2d surfaces? like bliting from a 8-bit surface to a 16-bit surface. I know D3D support it, but will microsoft make it work on non-3d surfaces... and do you guys know if bitmap rotation will be supported thru hel?,,,, again for 2d use and for directx8. http://www.fighterX.com

Well as far as I understand it, DX8 uses cubes to draw everything - even 2D stuff. That is, you define the vertex coordinates and which texture to apply, and the "rasterize" it. You are basically programming in 3D but ignoring the z coordinate.

So then you can easily rotate your sprites by using a rotation matrix on a specific quad.

And if D3D supports bit depth changing blitting stuff then (if my understanding is correct) it will be in DX8 in 2D application as well.

2D IS 3D in DX8. The 2D functionality is really 3D tricks with pre-transformed verts.