I want to accomplish the following: Background pic Scrolling text over it Occasionally an AVI fullscreen / An avi with text over it. I allready have the avi stuff. I only need to know if the fastest way for me is to use 3D or Ortho mode. I am not planning (in the current future) to implement ANY 3D thingies.

If you don''t plan to implement any 3D stuff then OpenGL is not the API for you, since its mainly 3D based.

about your problem.. if you just use ortho mode(2D) just use it also for BG/AVI ... no reasont to switch to 3D just for this

There are more worlds than the one that you hold in your hand...

Everything in OpenGL is 3D even the Ortho mode, so it doesn''t really matter speed wise.