From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Mar 12 22:46:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA09203 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 12 Mar 1997 22:46:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from obiwan.aceonline.com.au (obiwan.aceonline.com.au [203.103.90.67]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA09189 for ; Wed, 12 Mar 1997 22:46:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (adrian@localhost) by obiwan.aceonline.com.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA03098; Thu, 13 Mar 1997 20:48:37 +0800 (WST) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 20:48:37 +0800 (WST) From: Adrian Chadd To: Joel Yancey cc: Jacek Szostek , questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: XFree86 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Joel Yancey wrote: > > Try starting Xwindows with: > startx -- -bpp16 > and see if this helps =) > > > Joel yancey > Python@cia-g.com > Kinda. Basically, the VGA spec defined the VGA card to use 6 bits per colour (6 bits per red, 6 bits per green, 6 bits per blue).. giving 64 shades per each. This gives you a total colour PALETTE of 262,144 colours. Then you have to choose how many colours you want out of that palette (obviously the original VGA card with 256k couldn't display all at the same time :) so say you have 8bpp, that means "I can display 256 colours on the screen at once, each of those colours comes from the possible 262,144 colours avaliable". BUT *grin*, newer cards CAN do true 8 bits per colour, this is what it does in truecolour mode (16 million colours) since it just maps each 8 bit chunk to an 8 bit red, green and blue value (giving 24 bits, == 16 million). So you ARE getting 256 colours, its just confusing *grin* Hope this helps, Adrian. > > On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Jacek Szostek wrote: > > > I have installed XFree86 ver. 3.2 and configured XF86Config for S3 Trio > > 64V+ ( 2Mb Ram ), which I have. I have set up the "640x480" and "800x600" > > display modes and the display depth = 8, but I cannot get 256 colors. > > I have also set DefaultColorDepth in the screen section, but it is not > > working. > > When I launch X Window server, it reports using 6 bits per RGB value. I > > have no idea why, maybe I do something wrong. > > Can anybody help me ? > > > > Jacek > > > > > >