monitor question

[martman]

A friend of mine brought up the question of in game graphics configuration setup. The question was, when having a 24 bit monitor...a Dell 24 inch 2407 wfp.. if setting the graphics configuration tool to 32 bit rather than 24 bit (the Dell is a 24 bit monitor) will or can this cause graphics problems or shorten the life of the monitor?
Just exactly what kind of..if any, conflicts will running things at 32 bit cause?

 

[PurdueRy]

It won't cause any harm at all.

 

[mmnno]

32-bit color is 8-bits for each color channel (RGB) plus an 8-bit transparency (alpha) channel. The alpha channel is just for processing, it isn't sent to your monitor.

 

[will889]

mmnno is 100% correct.

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: will889
mmnno is 100% correct.

Are you 100% sure?

Actually in windows 32 bit color mode the extra byte is just there to make it dword aligned. (24bit is annoying and memory is cheap)

If you think about it logically, nothing sits behind the frame buffer so it has nothing to blend its alpha against.