Colour depths

[Z!re]

Right. But how does the RGB value fit into the space allocated to it in 16-bit modes? An RGB value is three bytes, and 16 bits is only 2.

Some cards use 5 bits red, 5 bits green, 5 bits blue, 1 unused bit. You get 32768 different colours.

Some others use 5/6/5, allowing for 65536 different colours.

Actually, 16bit is always 565, and 15bit is always 555. Like all screenmodes, they might not be supported by your monitor/gfx card, in some cases you get an emulated mode, in other the modeset will just fail.

Also, DrV's table thing, the RRRR[...] thing is in BITS, not bytes. Just to make it clear.

[marzecTM]

Right. But how does the RGB value fit into the space allocated to it in 16-bit modes? An RGB value is three bytes, and 16 bits is only 2.

Some cards use 5 bits red, 5 bits green, 5 bits blue, 1 unused bit. You get 32768 different colours.

Some others use 5/6/5, allowing for 65536 different colours.

Actually, 16bit is always 565, and 15bit is always 555. Like all screenmodes, they might not be supported by your monitor/gfx card, in some cases you get an emulated mode, in other the modeset will just fail.

Also, DrV's table thing, the RRRR[...] thing is in BITS, not bytes. Just to make it clear.

it's only guaranteed to be 565 with fbgfx. check out directdraw/directgraphics and you'll see that there's other 16-bit modes too

[Z!re]

Right. But how does the RGB value fit into the space allocated to it in 16-bit modes? An RGB value is three bytes, and 16 bits is only 2.

Some cards use 5 bits red, 5 bits green, 5 bits blue, 1 unused bit. You get 32768 different colours.

Some others use 5/6/5, allowing for 65536 different colours.

Actually, 16bit is always 565, and 15bit is always 555. Like all screenmodes, they might not be supported by your monitor/gfx card, in some cases you get an emulated mode, in other the modeset will just fail.

Also, DrV's table thing, the RRRR[...] thing is in BITS, not bytes. Just to make it clear.

it's only guaranteed to be 565 with fbgfx. check out directdraw/directgraphics and you'll see that there's other 16-bit modes too

Ofcourse, but we were talking about FB
There's also 7bit RGB mode, non-palletized, its weird