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From: daly@ecs.umass.edu (Bryon Daly, ECE dept, UMass, Amherst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: 256 colors in Windows 3
Message-ID: <12195.279f89a3@ecs.umass.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 91 01:28:03 GMT
References: <35950003@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.> <13912@encore.Encore.COM>
Lines: 35

In article <13912@encore.Encore.COM>, schwalbe@pinocchio.Encore.COM (Jim Schwalbe) writes:
> In article <35950003@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.> daveo@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. 
> (Dave Ochs) writes:
>>I have a "256 color" driver for Windows 3 that came with my PC/display, but
>>I can't see any difference when it's loaded.  What is supposed to change?  I
>>had fantisized that those stupid dithered colors would turn into solids, but
>>it didn't happen.  Is there something else that needs to be done besides
>>telling Windows about the new driver?
>>
> 
> Yeah, I noticed the same thing.  Seems that Windows 3.0 only supports 16 true
> colors.  I think with the 256 color driver though you can run applications
> that use more than 16 colors.  I've tried this and it works.  What I haven't
> tried is seeing what happens running an application that uses 256 colors
> under windows with a 16 color driver.  Has anyone noticed what happens here?
> I'll have to try that.

Windows does only support 16 colors (except I've heard the the title screen
will use 256, but I haven't noticed it.)   You need an application that is
256 color "aware" to take advantage of the 256 colors.  Paintbrush can work
with 256 color BMP's, but won't give you a 256 color pallette.  There are 
many other programs available that DO take advantage of the 256 colors: GIF
viewers, screen savers, and other graphics programs.  I think that programs
know enough to detect the 256 color ability on a system that it won't use
that mode with a 16 color driver.  But, if you try do display a 256 color
bmp with a 16 color system, I think it tries its best to display it using 16
colors (but I might be wrong - I can't exactly remember what happened when I
tried this.)  Perhaps Windows 3.1 will use 256 colors...

Oh yeah, to find out more about this stuff, there is a Frequently Asked
Questions file usually circulating on comp.windows.ms that will tell you all
about this sort of stuff.

Bryon Daly
daly@ecs.umass.edu