I am writing a map editing program for a 2D game using XNA. To create a Texture2D for all of the tiles that a map requires takes too long.

Are there any alternatives to using textures for drawing with XNA?

I attempted to create just one texture per tile set instead of a texture for every tile in a tile set, but there is a limit to the size of textures and I could not fit all the tiles of a tile set into one texture.

Currently the program contains all the would-be textures in memory as Bitmap objects. Is there a way to simply draw a Bitmap object to the screen in XNA? I have searched but I cannot find any information on this. This approach would avoid having to create textures altogether, however any tinting or effects I would have to do to the bitmap directly.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks