I'm looking for an Image control for WPF which can rapidly change images. The built in WPF one is quite slow for the image sizes im using (scaled). I only need about ~3 FPS. I have considered dropping to WinForms and even D3D but I'm not sure thats the best way.
Can anyone suggest something?
WPF's Image control uses the native "Windows Imaging" and Direct3D subsystems of Windows to do all its dirty work, so if used with the right paremeters it will be pretty much as fast as anything you will find.
I suspect the problem is that your settings are causing Windows Imaging load the image at full resolution, then having Direct3D scale it. The solution to this is to do the scaling as you load the image by setting DecodePixelHeight and DecodePixelWidth on the BitmapImage you are using as an ImageSource.
Another technique that many graphics apps use to speed things up is to preload the images in the background. For example, the Windows picture viewer automatically starts loading the next image as soon as the current image is shown.
If you are preloading images, consider doing it in a separate thread. Also make sure you use BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad when you create the BitmapImage or the preloading won't actually occur (the default is OnDemand).