No way!
Typically the combination of 3DNow! enhanced video drivers and DirectX
6.x/7.x can give UP TO about a 15% increase in speed, usually less.
Obviously the better the driver optimisation, the better the performance.
Also the DirectX enhancements only come into play when using Direct3D, so
OpenGL / Glide apps gain nothing through DirectX.
However, when the application / game itself is compiled to use the 3DNow!
extensions, (unfortunately this generally means manual optimisation of code,
as there are shamefully few decent 3DNow! supporting compilers available,
and even they aren't as effective as manual optimising!), you can get a
dramatic performance boost. The casing point for this is Quake 2. The AMD /
Voodoo2 version of Quake 2 can give about 60% performance boost over the
un-optimised version.
Mike West
3DNow! UK: www.3dnow.freeserve.co.uk