Doesn't really matter which version of DirectX, I just need a fast blitter with the ability to perform alpha blending. I was thinking of using plain old GDI for blitting since I've read that GDI is fully hardware accelerated on XP and blit functions are accelerated on Windows 7. With XNA, if I were to release the source, it would probably mean anyone who wants to download it would also have to download and install dependencies which is why I'm skeptical of using DX based solutions. SlimDX, XNA and SharpDX all require downloads I believe.