16 or 32 bits software.
Community Forums/General Help/16 or 32 bits software.
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| Is there a more viable solution? 8-bit (256 colours) is not reliable anymore.A lot of games do not run even in compatibility mode (Well, to be fair the game run.The colours do not!). This seems to be a generic problem with most and most hardware and software, some graphic drivers do not work for simple applications! 24-bit colour is good enough, but it is missing the 8-bit Alpha channel. This made transparece unavailable for applications and games. Sure, since not every program language support 32-bit colours this is not really a inconvenience for most applications. Except for action games! Shooters really heavy on Alpha channel to blend the graphics together ... Well, after all this what is still available for action games is the generic High Colour mode (16-bit). This is good for games and most software can be converted to mobile systesm, this is good for story telling games and Role Playing Games. 32-bit, it is faster for modern microcomputers (a lot of older modes do not work well without hardware acceleration).Somehow, sometimes the 24-bit graphics are slower due to further calculatio of the bits. |
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| Is there a more viable solution? What on earth do you mean by that? Depending on the video card, you can do 16, 24 or 32 bit. The 'best' solution is completely dependent on the video card you are using. Under blitzmax, you can use CountGraphicsModes / Getgraphicsmode to get a list of modes that are supported by the video card. Pick whichever one seems to fit your purpose best. |
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| What on earth do you mean by that? Depending on the video card, you can do 16, 24 or 32 bit. The 'best' solution is completely dependent on the video card you are using. Windows systems that use Intel Graphic chips only seems to possess 16-bit (high color) and 32-bit (true color) modes. Some years ago, there was some people telling that it is a good idea to only pick 32-bit colors for newer cards ... |
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| In full screen it is possible to use older 8-bit and 24-bit applications, but there is some problems when using colors and re-size the windows (change application) ... |
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| Some years ago, there was some people telling that it is a good idea to only pick 32-bit colors for newer cards ... Really depends on who your targeting your program at -- pretty much all the newer cards support 32 bit,but you should still *check* before setting the video mode, just in case. There's still some life for 16-bit as a fallback mode, though: in 16 bit mode you use less video memory, so depending on what all you're trying to do you may find some computers that won't have enough memory to run your game in 32-bit but would be OK in 16-bit mode. |
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| If you're targetting desktops then use 32 bit. Stop fooling around over-complicating things and just finish your game, learn from someone who has wasted a lot of time falling into the same trap. Ignore all the specs rubbish etc The root of all evil is premature optimization and too much worrying about stuff when you are nowhere close to finishing *anything*. Ignore this crap holding you back, you are in the year 2010, just make and finish the game, trust me on this. |
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| I would say use 32 bit for all PCs. I think i have an extremely old dell inspiron kicking about that cannot handle 32bit but i think that is the last one i saw. Basically if you want to target hardware -that- old you will be more worried about getting the game to run smooth to be honest. If anyone is in 16bit fallback / safe mode, then doubt they will want to play any games anyway, because it will be totally unaccelerated Vesa and EXTREMELY slow. (unless you want to drop all modern high level languages & graphics frameworks and go oldskool coding :) |
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| Here's some screen color statistics from my game website: 32-bit 2,175 52.28% 24-bit 1,893 45.50% 16-bit 91 2.19% 8-bit 1 0.02% This tip seemed like a good idea: "Under blitzmax, you can use CountGraphicsModes / Getgraphicsmode to get a list of modes that are supported by the video card. Pick whichever one seems to fit your purpose best. " |
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| I would go with Robert Cummiongs and DANMAN. Consider what kinda game you're making, if it's a flashy 3D mega visual experience, 32-Bit is likely a must, if only to ensure that the sshades and (as mentioned) transparency are all attributed correctly. If it's a simple tetris-a-like for example, then again, go with 32-bit. Why? Because it guarantees you wont have problems with transparancy or whatever then, and allows you to just make a decision and get on with things. Only when it's all finished and either it's eating up too much memory (really too much) or if a billion customers or whatever suddenly complain their 10 year old computers are struggling, then sure go bakc and add a 16-bit option - otherwise, it's a big waste of time :) Unless, of course, you are developing on a system with very limited specs, or aiming at mobile phones or something... though, they'll likely be more than capable in a few years to handle the basics of 3D and full 32-bit colour ranges. |
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| I would agree with Robert Cummings, just get your game finished then if you are still concerned over optimisation, go back and tidy a few things up, but we are living in 2010, I doubt theres much you could do to really slow down a modern pc enough to need optimisation (talking about casual games here). Spend less time worrying over a function taking 0.1 milliseconds to complete and just worry about getting the game done :P |
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| I do agree with that alot, but i think it's a good thing programmers stay vigilant, and look for ways to optimise, but not obsesses over it. Else you get sloppy in general. |
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| As had been pointed out to me Linux uses 24-bit so this could be an issue I would say 24-bit if you want to do cross platform or 32bit if you doing a Win32 only. |
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