In short, avoid using the debug options of direct if you can, it seems to only end in pain.
Whilst trying manual dx stuff to do with that imagetoimage thing i was posting about some guy recommended going to control panel, hitting directx, going to the direct3d tab and moving the debug slider up to the right par 1 and clicking the box to use the debug version of dx rather than retail. After doing this i started getting nice, plain english, debug outputs in my vc++6 output window and i thought it was great.
Anyway after going back to my main game which is becoming quite an engine (its certainly not small) I noticed that with my little test dungeons which are tiny i was getting real low fps. Then i switched it back to the real sized dungeons (i had it on small so i could easilly find treasure chests i was testing) and my fps was dropping to 15fps.. and then my video card crashed requiring a reboot. repeatedly. I spent a good hour or more trying to debug and eventually giving up and resorting to commenting out all my code line by line and recompiling until it worked. each time my gfx card died pretty much and it was SO painful.
then i remembered that i said set those dx options. What a sod. Reverting back to normal options fixed it.
Just a heads up for anyone who tries something simular -_-
[07:16:59-pm] « Sephnroth » you were dreaming about lee...
[07:17:13-pm] « Mouse » stfu
[07:17:22-pm] « Mouse » he was hanging himself lol