Figure 1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly You might be disappointed at first glance by what you see in this graph, but the results aren't as bad as they appear. It is important to look at the graphs collectively, not individually. Visual Basic 6.0 shipped with a ton of enhancements and new technologies, including many Web-related enhancements and database goodies. This is a small price to pay for losing a small percentage of performance in strings, math, and graphics. It's also encouraging to see the improvements VB posts in areas Microsoft has been evangelizing, such as COM. Visual Basic 6.0 picks up speed in exactly the areas Microsoft has been telling you to concentrate on, such as creating ActiveX servers or controls. I am surprised, however, by the fact that VB lost so much performance in its PSet method.