I'm currently making (well learning to make) a 2D/2.5D game engine, like DII. I was wondering if 32-bit color is worth the extra memory when I comes to 2D games, or if I should stick with 16bit.
Cheers
DW
I'm currently making (well learning to make) a 2D/2.5D game engine, like DII. I was wondering if 32-bit color is worth the extra memory when I comes to 2D games, or if I should stick with 16bit.
Cheers
DW
Well it really depends of your graphics and the colors you want you could actully get away with 256 depending of the colors you use
Woop?
Alright, well I want it too look good..... I plan on using some 3D models in it. 3D models on 2D background with 2d colision. not sure if thats gonna work too well, but thats the plan
cheers
DW
I wouldn't worry about the extra memory if I were you. Even Walmart computers now come with 512mb of ram! Not to mention decently sized harddrives. I believe the one with the 512mb has a 120 or 160gb drive.
If you mean space as in size of the files, just store them in a zipfile using zlib.
Last edited by Frobozz; 09-14-2004 at 06:51 PM.
Your AGP chipset will never use more memory than is allowed in the video aperture size. Most are set to 256 and accessing system RAM is not nearly as fast as onboard video RAM. By default Direct3D attempts to fill up video RAM before it attempts to create buffers and resources in system RAM. More system memory will not improve video performance in most cases. It will improve load times and could even eliminate mid-level loads since most everything is in RAM, and depending on sound card memory - it also will not have to load sounds when they are needed. It can cache them out of system memory. Some sound cards have a good deal of onboard memory as well and DirectMusic attempts to use these resources first since they are the fastest.I wouldn't worry about the extra memory if I were you. Even Walmart computers now come with 512mb of ram! Not to mention decently sized harddrives. I believe the one with the 512mb has a 120 or 160gb drive.
Use 32-bit color. It's actually 24-bit with an alpha channel added in the highest 8 bits.
So the moral of all this is that the extra color used by 32-bit graphics is worth the extra memory in 2D games?
DW
Why is 24-bit said to be so slow then? And why don't all cards support it?Use 32-bit color. It's actually 24-bit with an alpha channel added in the highest 8 bits.
24-bit is slower because most video cards don't like the odd byte addressing (multiples of 3). So 32-bit mode is just 24-bit (more or less) but padded so its 32-bit, the fastest possible structure in current Pentiums.
The Windows desktop uses 24-bit color. However it does not matter if you are in 24 bit or 32-bit mode, all video fetches and writes are 32-bit. The system does not care whether or not you make use of the higher 8 bits.
