24 bit color support? (Sort of)

[Reverend]

Not sure if this has been previously addressed or not (my forum search turned up zilch), so here we go.

Is there any possibility of Zsnes supporting 24 bit color? Or, at the very, VERY least, automatically defaulting down to 16 when the program opens? (Like Gens, the Sega Genesis emulator does, instead of just telling me to change my display settings and closing) Having to stop, alter my display settings, and then load everything up to play a game, and then set everything back afterwards just isn't worth the hassle when snes9x has no complaints about my 24 bit color... but I really dig the Zsnes features. Argh..

All in all, I guess I can hope, can't I?

[snkcube]

I don't think ZSNES will ever support 24 bit color.

[grinvader]

24 bpp desktops are an error of nature. They should never have been used in the first place.
We're using 32-bit registers for everything now (some processors even have 64-bit registers).
16 is a submultiple, so it's ok, but 24 isn't.

My advice: permanently switch your desktop to 32 bpp. Unless you have a strange graphic card, it'll actually give you better performance than to use 24 bpp. Moreover, as I said, everything uses 32 bpp now. You'll likely meet problems later if you stick this config around.
Now, if you don't want to change that, stick to snes9x. I don't think the devs will ever have the time to make Zsnes 24bpp-compatible.

[Reverend]

Unfortunately, regretfully, and I'm afraid to admit it (and so on and so forth) but my display only goes up to 24 bit color. ~sigh~ So .. snes9x it is (up until I can afford/get a better video card, I guess)

[Magus`]

What *is* your video card? Updating your drivers might fix that issue.

[kevman]

32-bit color is nothing more than 24 bit color with a byte of padding to improve performance on modern machines.

24 bit color is 16.7 million colors, already outside the range of want the eye can see. 32 bit is useless.

So, really, there is no reason why your display can't show that many, unless it is really old and very poorly designed.

[MaxSt]

Very simple - play in fullscreen mode. All fullscreen modes are 16 bit.

[Nightcrawler]

32-bit color is nothing more than 24 bit color with a byte of padding to improve performance on modern machines.

24 bit color is 16.7 million colors, already outside the range of want the eye can see. 32 bit is useless.

So, really, there is no reason why your display can't show that many, unless it is really old and very poorly designed.

The fourth byte is useful if it's used as an alpha channel for transparency.

I can rarely tell the difference between 16-bit color and 32-bit color. I usually keep my desktop at 16-bit color for faster performance(Geforce 2 Ultra) since I don't seem to be missing anything.

[Clements]

Heh, I've never had the displeasure of having 24-Bit colour selectable on any of the PCs I've ever used.

[grinvader]

I can rarely tell the difference between 16-bit color and 32-bit color. I usually keep my desktop at 16-bit color for faster performance(Geforce 2 Ultra) since I don't seem to be missing anything.

Wow. I sure can see the differences between the 65536 colours, even if the different modes make it slightly less noticeable (especially 565 rgb)...

That's a huge step from 16.7 millions to less than 70 thousands. And if you can't tell consecutive colours in 4444 rgba mode (like, 0x0B00 and 0x1B00, or anything of the sort) from one another you must have some kind of colour-seeing trouble.
I mean, 4444 rgba only allows 4096 colours and alpha.

As example, the zsnes gui in fullscreen seems to be in 5551 rgba format. Can't you see the difference when you get one channel up or down by one unit ?

[Reverend]

What *is* your video card? Updating your drivers might fix that issue.

Sadly, it's a built in chipset. Intel 810, to be precise. I did go ahead and update the drivers hoping, despite knowing the implausability, that it'd make a 32 bit color option appear, but alas.. as I truely expected, no such luck. ~chuckle~

[Oblivion]

My old computer had that same integrated crap, just use 16-bit.

[Nightcrawler]

I can rarely tell the difference between 16-bit color and 32-bit color. I usually keep my desktop at 16-bit color for faster performance(Geforce 2 Ultra) since I don't seem to be missing anything.

Wow. I sure can see the differences between the 65536 colours, even if the different modes make it slightly less noticeable (especially 565 rgb)...

That's a huge step from 16.7 millions to less than 70 thousands. And if you can't tell consecutive colours in 4444 rgba mode (like, 0x0B00 and 0x1B00, or anything of the sort) from one another you must have some kind of colour-seeing trouble.
I mean, 4444 rgba only allows 4096 colours and alpha.

As example, the zsnes gui in fullscreen seems to be in 5551 rgba format. Can't you see the difference when you get one channel up or down by one unit ?

On occasion I can see a difference, and even then it's minor color banding that seems to go away. Really I don't see it as a big deal.

As long as the colors I do get are vibrant and colorful, 65000 of them seem to be enough in most cases. Even photos don't look too much different to me in 32-bit color. I see SOME difference, but it's minor.

[illegal eagle]

Everybody should be able to see the difference in Homeworld, or other games with fine color transitions.

In ZSNES it's not a big deal, unless one needs the correct RGB values.

[kode54]

The only difference between 24bpp and 32bpp is the reserved/unused 8 bits, which only serve to pad each pixel to an even 32 bits, for faster manipulation. Even 4x multiplication for pixel offsets, even 32 bits so pixel copying and manipulation are as easy as 32-bit operations with x86 general purpose registers, or even MMX or integer SSE operations.

If somebody wanted to write in support for 24bpp modes, it would be possible. However, since the source buffer is already 32bpp, the conversion would probably be limited to an inefficient byte copy operation.

Not to say it wouldn't be possible, but don't expect a performance miracle. Since you have a video card which is old enough to have this, I wouldn't be surprised if you had an old system to match, and I would expect this sort of handicap to make the performance difference between 16bpp and 24bpp+ more noticeable.

Everybody should be able to see the difference in Homeworld, or other games with fine color transitions.

In ZSNES it's not a big deal, unless one needs the correct RGB values.

Is this not irrelevant for SNES emulation, unless you factor in interpolated scaling algorithms? Even 555 15bpp is sufficient for nearest-neighbor scaling, or dithered bilinear if you use OpenGL or software scaling and dithering.

[ReRuss]

There is a lot of onboard that uses 24-bit max.

I have an old Intel i810 that has 24-bit max , but it crashes a lot now , usually on some emus , and sometimes installers...

[kode54]

There is a lot of onboard that uses 24-bit max.

I have an old Intel i810 that has 24-bit max , but it crashes a lot now , usually on some emus , and sometimes installers...

Okay, so we can include Cheap POS alongside Old As God models.

[illegal eagle]

Is this not irrelevant for SNES emulation, unless you factor in interpolated scaling algorithms? Even 555 15bpp is sufficient for nearest-neighbor scaling, or dithered bilinear if you use OpenGL or software scaling and dithering.

I was more thinking of the 15 bpp vs. 16 bpp issue. When you do a PrtScr of ZSNES, the colors will be most likely in the 565 format. Maybe not, if you can get your desktop to 15 bpp. So if you need the correct RGB values, 16 bpp won't suffice. Unless you want to convert all your pictures.

[kode54]

Then people need to be educated to use the internal screen shot feature instead of PrtScr. Or, the Windows version can be made to bind that key and save screen shots automatically, complete with a status indicator which will not appear in successive screen shots.

[Bahamut_ZERO_Clue]

Ah the Intel 810... blech! Get a decent PCI video card and that will solve the problem and give you some added gaming power as well as free up your CPU from doing practically all the work. PCI video cards are cheep and practically at any store you can find even Wal-Mart. I recommend a GeForceFX 5200 for something nice and well rounded as well as cheep. I don't believe any 810 equipped motherboard has an AGP slot BTW.

[grinvader]

PCI video cards are cheep (...). I recommend a GeForceFX 5200 for something nice and well rounded as well as cheep.

T3h orxogrefkl NAZI sez "it's CHEAP, f00"

[Agozer]

PCI video cards are cheep (...). I recommend a GeForceFX 5200 for something nice and well rounded as well as cheep.

T3h orxogrefkl NAZI sez "it's CHEAP, f00"

ROFL. Right on.

[ReRuss]

The 810 is my old comp , it's not used now but I still got it , and I did get a 9200SE before I retired it.

But yes you're right , they have no AGP , and they dont even have PCI on the mainboard , it has a 2nd board for PCI , mainly because teh case style. You could lock/unlock a bottom tray to slide it out. Which pretty much everything was slide out trays , slide out teh tray , attach whatever , slide in , and there ya go.

Even though it's shit compared t any comp you usually see now , it's been a workhorse for a long time.

[MorteTheSkull]

I recently upgraded from my built in Intel card (which sucked horribly) to a Geforce MX 4000
It is fairly cheap, and runs most games pretty well.

[snkcube]

I recently upgraded from my built in Intel card (which sucked horribly) to a Geforce MX 4000
It is fairly cheap, and runs most games pretty well.

You mean a Geforce 4 MX right? I heard those suck.