why is X 24bit colour?

Jestrik · 01-12-2004, 04:07 PM

Why is X 24bit colour and when will it be 32bit? Are transparencies so slow due to it being 24bit?

leonscape · 01-12-2004, 07:17 PM

What your talking about ( Alpha blending ) is available in the latest X I think 4.3

trickykid · 01-12-2004, 07:43 PM

I still use 16 bit cause quite frankly, unless your playing like games and such, your not going to see the difference between 24 bit and 32 bit using the naked eye, from what I've been told.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.. don't matter though, I still use 16 bit..

Regards.

leonscape · 01-12-2004, 08:20 PM

Theirs actually no difference between 24 and 32 bit. Their still 24bit colour. The extra 8 bits get used for alpha.

Although..
I have heard talk of using the extra 8 as part of the calulations to keep colour accuracy as well.
and some people go on about using them for grayscale, as 256 isn't really enough.

Jestrik · 01-13-2004, 04:48 AM

Where can I download the latest version of X? Is alpha blending like the translucencies you see when you make a menu tranparent or the shell slightly transparent, b/c when i drag it the backgroyund image takes about 0.5 second to update and so it doesn't look like it's transparent. In XP it does it straight away... is this b/c it's missing those extra 8bits of alpha?

leonscape · 01-13-2004, 01:50 PM

Their extra 8 bits aren't missing their just not used. Alpha blending is the same as transparancy. Its called alpha blending to be more specific.

When something has transparency its either transparent or not, like gifs their no middle ground.

When something is alpha. It can have multiple levels of transparency, 256 normally. think png.

Jestrik · 01-13-2004, 02:26 PM

ah now i understand

Thanks...
how do i get X to use those extra 8 bits of goodness?

leonscape · 01-13-2004, 03:30 PM

You need XFree86 4.3 its currently unstable. I think slack has the packages though.

Jestrik · 01-14-2004, 06:47 AM

So do i just pop in the slack 9.1 cd and then what do i do?

Cheers

leonscape · 01-14-2004, 07:07 AM

No I think you have to download it, Someone with Slack will know better though...

Just checked the site and you should be using 4.3 anyway on 9.1 So you need a window manager that supports it. I know KDE3.2 does I think GNOME does too.

They might have to be enabled for it though. I've run out of knowledge on this sorry