Matt, so FFP is sort of a DX script that, lacking hardware support, is translated into a shader for use?

That would explain the big fps drop I see when I use vs/ps shaders! Perhaps my nvidia has ffp hardware support! But with the newer cards, there should be no noticable difference in the speed (they will both be slow)?

My concern is that a game development cycle that takes years, must be forward looking tecnologically. So perhaps I should use shaders instead of FFP, since you can do more and it will probably outlast FFP?