Kind of OT: 16-bit vs 32-bit color differences.

[Jeff7]

Geez, I must be the most color-sensitive guy in the world.
I was browsing Anandtech and noticed a weird checkering pattern on the blue message background that I'd never seen before. On a hunch, I checked my colors - CS had crashed before, and it left the system set at 16-bit color. (The game itself runs 32-bit, the menus are 16-bit though)
Set it to 32 bit and the checkering is gone. Guess it's kind of cool having good color vision.
Anyone else notice this at all?

 

[BFG10K]

There is a big difference between 16 bit colour and 32 bit colour in both 2D mode and 3D mode.

 

[Superwormy]

Agreed, theres a huge difference, pretty easy to see most of the time.

 

[Jeff7]

Yeah; I just know that a lot of ppl sometimes post about how there's "no difference" between 16 and 32 bit. I run everything in 32-bit color.

 

[Actaeon]

I really don't see a difference in em. Oh well.

 

[Jeff7]

See? Thanks Actaeon.

Guess it just depends on color sensitivity. I guess the people who can't tell the difference are at an advantage - they don't have to suffer the performance hit of 32-bit color.

 

[Reliant]

Sometimes you can really notice the diff. between 16 and 32.
I can notice the diff. rather easily in Quake 3 and Bridge Commander.
32-bit just can get those awkward colors that are between two colors.
In Bridge Commander you can see the diff. when looking at a Nebula that blends one color with another...
I noticed the menu in Q3 looks crappy in 16-bit too.

 

[Yvo]

In 3D I notice the difference in games from the last 2-3 years.

In 2D... I only notice overall more color... but really not that noticeable.

 

[flood]

easily noticeable imo

 

[boran]

in most games the amount of color breaking depends on the texture format they use...

if they use a 5551 format (Red Green Blue Alpha) the color breaking isnt very visible.

but if they spend more on the alpha channel the color breaking is very visible C&C renegade for instance, which uses 4444 format in 16bit and therefore has a very bad 16bit quality imho.

so what I want to say is that it can depend on what bitdepth the gamemakes optimise the display. if they program it to be a 16bit game and therefore optimised to look decent with a limited color spectrum.

 

[rogue1979]

I notice the difference in 2D, in 3D I can't tell in most games.

 

[Blurry]

I think that 16bit equals 65536 colors, 24bit equals 16,777,000 colors, and 32bit equals around 4.2 billion colors. I think that most CRT and analog monitors(and LCD) can only show 16 million colors, which is like 24bit. I may be wrong though.

 

[Jeff7]

That's what I thought too, Blurry; actually, 32-bit color is 16 million (24-bit), but the extra 8 bits are used for something else; I think it's for alpha blending or lighting.

 

[Blurry]

Whoops, I forgot about that. I think the other 8 bit is used for calculation, etc. Wonder if there ever will be 64bit color.

 

[FuManStan]

Its almost certain that there will be 64 bit color, carmack even mentioned it in one of his .plan files. As for 16 and 32, i see a difference but when i'm playing a fast paced game i never notice. And since my computer isn't that great, i stick with 16 in games. For 2D, i see some big differences with a few images, but not all.

 

[Yvo]

64 bit... while I believe that its on its way... will it be like so many things that they upgrade but we actually don't need.

How many colors would 64bit be?

This is how it is right now

4bit = 16 colors
8bit = 256 colors
16bit = 16,000 colors
24 bit = 16,000,000 colors
32bit = 16,000,000 colors and 8bit alpha masking


People are already saying that 48bit scanners are useless for the fact that our eyes can't even see that many colors.

Just my opinion,

Yvo

 

[gunf1ghter]

Just a comment about what Blurry said, CRT's are actually able to display an "infinite" number of color gradiations since they are analog devices, so 32 bit isn't really the limit. Technically LCD's are currently limited to 16 million colors, and fall a tad short of being able to truly do 32 bit display correctly.

 

[BFG10K]

but the extra 8 bits are used for something else; I think it's for alpha blending or lighting.

Alpha blending or more accurately, multipass rendering.

64 bit... while I believe that its on its way

The DirectX 9.0 spec calls for (and supports) 64 bit colour.

Most likely it's simply going to be a 16/16/16/16 (RGBA) configuration with the extra bits being utilised for extra precision for greater internal accuracy for operations such as multipass rendering.

 

[Actaeon]

I probally won't see a difference in that 64 bit color too.