Whats the point of 32bit colour!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Garry Rowland
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Garry Rowland

Switch from 16 to 32 bit colour on a CRT monitor and you'll notice a big
difference.

But I've found no LCD monitor with a colour depth greater than 24 bit (8
bits per channel)

Since LCD monitors are are now even sold with cheap systems, I guess the
real question should be - WHATS THE POINT OF A GRAPHICS CARD WITH 32 BIT
COLOUR!

Until LCD monitors improve to beyond the point where computers can only be
used as glorified DVD players or games consoles, I don't see why graphics
cards manufacturers bother to offer higher and higher specifications.

As a serious graphics user I would love to have a bigger screen, but the
cost - in lost performance - is just too great.

NB - I do have a small LCD monitor as well... Naturally, switching from 16
bit to 32 bit on that makes no difference at all.
 
Garry Rowland said:
Switch from 16 to 32 bit colour on a CRT monitor and you'll notice a big
difference.

But I've found no LCD monitor with a colour depth greater than 24 bit (8
bits per channel)

Since LCD monitors are are now even sold with cheap systems, I guess the
real question should be - WHATS THE POINT OF A GRAPHICS CARD WITH 32 BIT
Click to expand...

You seem to not know the differences between 24bit and 32 bit color. Both
24bit and 32bit produce the identical number of colors (16,777,216) on a
monitor of any kind. In 32bit color mode, the remaining 8bits are used to
render what's called an Alpha channel, which handles separate layers of
transparency or translucency of images and objects. You'll see differences
in 3D animations, digital video and 3D games. Not on a 2D desktop. Since
these transparency effects do show up on the LCD's used by Apple running OSX
and will do so under the upcoming Vista, running a 32 bit desktop vs a 24bit
one will have visual differences under these circumstances.
 
You seem to not know the differences between 24bit and 32 bit color. Both
24bit and 32bit produce the identical number of colors (16,777,216) on a
monitor of any kind. In 32bit color mode, the remaining 8bits are used to
render what's called an Alpha channel, which handles separate layers of
transparency or translucency of images and objects. You'll see differences
in 3D animations, digital video and 3D games. Not on a 2D desktop. Since
these transparency effects do show up on the LCD's used by Apple running
OSX and will do so under the upcoming Vista, running a 32 bit desktop vs a
24bit one will have visual differences under these circumstances.
Click to expand...

Forgot to add, many LCD's can't display 32bit with analog input. With DVI
they do flawlessly. Try doing transparency effects with Photoshop or other
graphical software with your desktop set at 24bit and see what happens. Try
it again at 32bit. You'll notice that it now works. Even on your LCD
monitor.
 
Forgot to add, many LCD's can't display 32bit with analog input. With DVI
they do flawlessly. Try doing transparency effects with Photoshop or other
graphical software with your desktop set at 24bit and see what happens. Try
it again at 32bit. You'll notice that it now works. Even on your LCD
monitor.
Click to expand...

In some cases, those extra 8 bits aren't used at all. It's just easier
and faster to access memory in 32-bit chunks than separate 16- and 8-bit
chunks.
 
Switch from 16 to 32 bit colour on a CRT monitor and you'll notice a big
difference.

But I've found no LCD monitor with a colour depth greater than 24 bit (8
bits per channel)

Since LCD monitors are are now even sold with cheap systems, I guess the
real question should be - WHATS THE POINT OF A GRAPHICS CARD WITH 32 BIT
COLOUR!

Until LCD monitors improve to beyond the point where computers can only be
used as glorified DVD players or games consoles, I don't see why graphics
cards manufacturers bother to offer higher and higher specifications.

As a serious graphics user I would love to have a bigger screen, but the
cost - in lost performance - is just too great.

NB - I do have a small LCD monitor as well... Naturally, switching from 16
bit to 32 bit on that makes no difference at all.
Click to expand...

So because you found no LCD monitors with a color depth greater than
24 bit, you're wondering why they include 32bit on vid cards?

I'm running just fine with my 19" NEC CRT monitor... I should not have
32bit color when I buy a new $750 fancy new vid card?

Also, the LCD monitors they throw in as part of a cheap system bundle
are not the greatest..

Tony!


I
 
Just emphasizing this point - it makes quite a large speed difference
in most cases (at the expense of memory space).
 
The optical difference depends on the creator of your desktop icons.
Turning windowsXP icons in 16bit makes them ugly,however there are very
pretty icons that look great at 16bit.
Nowadays videocards don't suffer much from running 32bit native,but older
cards do get some performance impact due to the extra memory usage.
And indeed,it's the lack of capability from certain videocards that they
can't run 24bit,so they made them 32bit.
Or it was too difficult or expensive those days so they skipped 24bit.
There is some insight story on this subject which already exsisted back in
the voodoo addon cards,or started at that time.
So don't hang me on this for adding an incomplete statement. :)
 
Garry said:
Switch from 16 to 32 bit colour on a CRT monitor and you'll notice a big
difference.

But I've found no LCD monitor with a colour depth greater than 24 bit (8
bits per channel)

Since LCD monitors are are now even sold with cheap systems, I guess the
real question should be - WHATS THE POINT OF A GRAPHICS CARD WITH 32 BIT
COLOUR!
Click to expand...

Because there is no such thing as true "32 bit color" on PC systems.
32-bit color uses 24 bits for the color data, the remaining 8 bits are
either used for something else like alpha (transparency) data or are
simply wasted. The reason for using 32 bits rather than 24 is that video
memory buses are multiples of 32 bits wide, therefore using 24-bit
packed data could require multiple memory bus transactions to retrieve
the data for a single pixel.
 
Hey mister, you have any links showing the difference, since I am kinda
skeptical of this theory ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
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