Hello...
it seems XFree86 supports a maximum of only 24bit colour.
but ive seen people saying linux gets the same number of colours out of 24bits, as windows gets from 32 bits.

is this true ?
if so can some-one explain to me how this is done ?

is it somthing to do with alpha channels and transparancy ???

thankyou.

ok, here's what ve found out, (but it only partially answers my question)...

8 bits in a byte,
1 byte for red
1 byte for green
1 byte for blue
1 byte for transparancy = 4 bytes or 32bits.

what it looks like is happening...
is windows is sat there saying "Hey, i got 32 bits of colour"

and linux is sat saying "Hey, i get 24 bits of colour, and 8 bits of transparency"

is this whole things just one of those "Ahaaaa but a thumb isnt a finger" kind of jokes ?

You've got it right with the alpha channels. 32 bits add another 8 bits for each pixel which controls the alpha of that pixel. This allows cool effects like transparency but it means more processiing and memory is required. Right now X doesn't support 32 bits, only 24, and transparency is done in kind of a hackish way. Try turning it on in gnome-terminal, Eterm, what have you, and you'll see what I mean. Instead of being transparent so you can see the window below you will see the desktop wallpaper no matter how many windows you're on top of. The freedesktop Xserver project is working on transparency and right now it kind of works. Let's hope it matures enough into something really cool.

ahhh....
ok, i get it.

so its only X that is flawed in this way, i take it my games are capable of running in 32bit colour.

anyway, thanks.

Many games will still work with 24 bit color. UT2003 for example actually runs better on Linux with color depth set to 32 bit (which we know X won't do) than if we set it back to 16 bit. Not sure why but that's what I've experienced.

wow yeah, gnome-terminal SUCKS with transparency
when you say it kinda works now... is that a kind of works in a unstable beta, and will be stable in the distant future ?