Very Computer

by **tmc** » Mon, 16 Sep 1996 04:00:00

I just don't get it! Many of the PC's today are being sold with the
idea of web-browsing in mind, right? Most of these are Pentiums or, at
the very least, 486 DX 100's. These computers MUST be coming equipped
with video cards that have, at least, 1MB of memory. They can,
therefore, display 800x600 with 64K colors. So why are people setting
them to display 640x480 with 256 colors? Isn't that kinda like buying
an expensive stereo CD player and seeting it play mono, or buying a big
screen color T.V. and setting it to display black and white?

Just an observation, but even my older 386 runs at 800x600 64k. I'll
admit I don't use it as much as my newer system but when I do it's not
that much of a transition. A little (all right, a lot) slower but still
reasonable (and great colors to boot!) even with the 14" screen.

T. Michael Clark
President Earth Orbit Consulting

Free Web Graphic Tutorials--Learn to make your own professional looking
Web Graphics. Go to the URL below and select the TUTORIAL button.

Web Page Design: http://www.accent.net/tmc/earth.htm

by **Chris Carte** » Mon, 16 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> I just don't get it! Many of the PC's today are being sold with the
> idea of web-browsing in mind, right? Most of these are Pentiums or, at
> the very least, 486 DX 100's. These computers MUST be coming equipped
> with video cards that have, at least, 1MB of memory. They can,
> therefore, display 800x600 with 64K colors. So why are people setting
> them to display 640x480 with 256 colors? Isn't that kinda like buying
> an expensive stereo CD player and seeting it play mono, or buying a big
> screen color T.V. and setting it to display black and white?

Well, I'm developing pages for a site that has a lot of PCs used as
general work machines - these are generally set up with 256 colours
and the *displayable area* set to the highest possible for that graphics
card (norm. 1024 x 768). This is because our users can have several big
apps
on the go at once and prefer a larger desktop to more colours. ('256
colours
if fine for what I need')

Often people want to ensure that their pages can look half-decent on
256 colour systems because that is perceived as the current lowest-
common-denominator in the browsing world...

Chris

by **Scott Smith - JASC In** » Mon, 16 Sep 1996 04:00:00

>I just don't get it! Many of the PC's today are being sold with the
>idea of web-browsing in mind, right? Most of these are Pentiums or, at
>the very least, 486 DX 100's. These computers MUST be coming equipped
>with video cards that have, at least, 1MB of memory. They can,
>therefore, display 800x600 with 64K colors. So why are people setting
>them to display 640x480 with 256 colors? Isn't that kinda like buying
>an expensive stereo CD player and seeting it play mono, or buying a big
>screen color T.V. and setting it to display black and white?

Reply:

It's because, more often than not, a new system is set at the default
256 color resolution and many people don't even know they can
change the system settings.

It's also less of a burden on the video card and system to run in
a low res setting if the machine is primarily a business machine
(i.e. Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc...) so many people
never bother to switch to high res settings.

I personally run at a 1152 x 864 (32-bit) setting for day to day
use. But, I think you'll find most users running at much lower
res settings.

Scott Smith, JASC Inc.

by **Jerry Chamber** » Mon, 16 Sep 1996 04:00:00

This guy's tutorials are excellent.
Check them out.

Mainly for PSP(Paint-Shop-Pro)

by **michael shaffe** » Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> I just don't get it! Many of the PC's today are being sold with the
> idea of web-browsing in mind, right? Most of these are Pentiums or, at
> the very least, 486 DX 100's. These computers MUST be coming equipped
> with video cards that have, at least, 1MB of memory. They can,
> therefore, display 800x600 with 64K colors. So why are people setting
> them to display 640x480 with 256 colors? Isn't that kinda like buying
> an expensive stereo CD player and seeting it play mono, or buying a big
> screen color T.V. and setting it to display black and white?

> Just an observation, but even my older 386 runs at 800x600 64k. I'll
> admit I don't use it as much as my newer system but when I do it's not
> that much of a transition. A little (all right, a lot) slower but still
> reasonable (and great colors to boot!) even with the 14" screen.

> ...

^THE^ 216 color palette are those colors which PC and Mac 8bit system
palettes share, a so-called "netscape compatible" palette. The important
point is that it is 8bit, and many HTML coders still depend on 8bit GIF
images which are best for icons and maps ... there you have it ... the
216 color palette ... use it ^only^ for WWWeb GIFs.

shaf
--
<\/>/\<\/>/\<\/>/\<\/>/\ cogito, ergo zZOooOM /\<\/>/\<\/>/\<\/>/\<\/>

Geological Science's Electron Probe Facility at the University of Oregon
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mshaf/epmahome/

by **Scott Smith - JASC In** » Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:00:00

Quote:>The reason not to switch is speed and memory use. With good 256 color
>mapping images will usually look as good or better than 64k colors;
>because sports fans, in 5,6,5 mode you have less reds, greens and blues
>to choose from! Try my (free) netscape plugin on a 256 color vga and
>you will see my point.

So are you saying that your plugin can properly map a true color (24
or 32 bit) photo image to 256 with no noticeable loss? That is why I,
and most people I know, run at resolutions higher than 256 colors.

I'm downloading it now to take a look!

Scott

by **Jerry Chamber** » Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> This guy's tutorials are excellent.
> Check them out.

> Mainly for PSP(Paint-Shop-Pro)

The url is attached.
http://www.accent.net/tmc/tmc_tut.htm

[ tmc_tut.htm 2K ]

Paint Shop Pro Tutorials

3D-Button Tutorial

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Added August 30th 1996.

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Added September 15th 1996.

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by **Ross Smit** » Tue, 17 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> >I just don't get it! Many of the PC's today are being sold with the
> >idea of web-browsing in mind, right? Most of these are Pentiums or, at
> >the very least, 486 DX 100's. These computers MUST be coming equipped
> >with video cards that have, at least, 1MB of memory. They can,
> >therefore, display 800x600 with 64K colors. So why are people setting
> >them to display 640x480 with 256 colors? Isn't that kinda like buying
> >an expensive stereo CD player and seeting it play mono, or buying a big
> >screen color T.V. and setting it to display black and white?

> It's because, more often than not, a new system is set at the default
> 256 color resolution and many people don't even know they can
> change the system settings.

> It's also less of a burden on the video card and system to run in
> a low res setting if the machine is primarily a business machine
> (i.e. Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc...) so many people
> never bother to switch to high res settings.

> I personally run at a 1152 x 864 (32-bit) setting for day to day
> use. But, I think you'll find most users running at much lower
> res settings.

There's also the trade-off between colour and pixel resolution. My PC
can do 800x600x65536, but I normally run it at 1152x864x256, because I'd
rather have the extra resolution than the extra colours.

--

"I have a natural revulsion to any operating system that shows so
little planning as to have named all its commands after digestive
noises (awk, grep, fsck, nroff)." -- The Unix-Haters' Handbook

by **Guido Vollbedin** » Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> The reason not to switch is speed and memory use. With good 256 color
> mapping images will usually look as good or better than 64k colors;
> because sports fans, in 5,6,5 mode you have less reds, greens and blues
> to choose from!

If you claim that, you probably forgot something!
Check http://www.esc.de/homes/guivol/fixpix/

Quote:> Try my (free) netscape plugin on a 256 color vga and
> you will see my point.

Sorry, can't try it since I'm working on Unix/X.
But then I agree with your point 2 why to work in higher color depths
than 8 bit. The future will prove it to be the right way, I guess...

Regards,
Guido

by **Guido Vollbedin** » Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> The reason not to switch is speed and memory use. With good 256 color
> mapping images will usually look as good or better than 64k colors;
> because sports fans, in 5,6,5 mode you have less reds, greens and blues
> to choose from!

If you claim that, you probably forgot something!
Check http://www.esc.de/homes/guivol/fixpix/

Quote:> Try my (free) netscape plugin on a 256 color vga and
> you will see my point.

Sorry, can't try it since I'm working on Unix/X.
But then I agree with your point 2 why to work in higher color depths
than 8 bit. The future will prove it to be the right way, I guess...

Regards,
Guido

by **Victor Eng** » Fri, 20 Sep 1996 04:00:00

>> The reason not to switch is speed and memory use. With good 256 color
>> mapping images will usually look as good or better than 64k colors;
>> because sports fans, in 5,6,5 mode you have less reds, greens and blues
>> to choose from!
>If you claim that, you probably forgot something!
>Check http://www.esc.de/homes/guivol/fixpix/

I don't know what relevance that site has to this discussion. I think
what Jack was getting at was that with an efficient 256 color image
optimizer, colors can be chosen very carefully to match the image.
With 64k colors, however, you cannot choose the colors (at least on
some platforms). You are stuck with a standard color distribution with
a bit depth of 5 bits each for red and blue and 6 bits for green.

Quote:>> Try my (free) netscape plugin on a 256 color vga and
>> you will see my point.
>Sorry, can't try it since I'm working on Unix/X.
>But then I agree with your point 2 why to work in higher color depths
>than 8 bit. The future will prove it to be the right way, I guess...

Perhaps on Unix that fixpix program will work, but on other platforms,
I don't think it will. In any case, you can't rely on users to have
fixpix.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Victor Engel Vector Angle

http://the-light.com http://www.onr.com/user/lights

by **Guido Vollbedin** » Fri, 20 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> >Check http://www.esc.de/homes/guivol/fixpix/

> I don't know what relevance that site has to this discussion.

Oh, I think it has *much* relevance! The topic tells about the
common 216 color palette, which means 6 levels per primary
component, which is only acceptable with additional dithering.

Quote:> I think
> what Jack was getting at was that with an efficient 256 color image
> optimizer, colors can be chosen very carefully to match the image.

Yes, but this doesn't help if you want to benefit from 1-pass
("on-the-fly") processing or multi-image display.

Quote:> With 64k colors, however, you cannot choose the colors (at least on
> some platforms). You are stuck with a standard color distribution with
> a bit depth of 5 bits each for red and blue and 6 bits for green.

And then you can apply FixPix! 5 bits means 32 base levels, 6 bits
means 64 base levels. This is much better than 6*6*6 or 8*8*4 in 8 bit
modes, and with FixPix's additional dithering it looks *great*!

Quote:> Perhaps on Unix that fixpix program will work, but on other platforms,

I suspect you didn't read the page carefully. FixPix is not a program,
it's a general algorithm and platform-independent! I used it since
1992 on an Atari! And the VDI is rather old-fashioned from a today's
point of view. If your platform can't use FixPix, then I would consider
it to be very poor in design!;-)

Quote:> I don't think it will. In any case, you can't rely on users to have
> fixpix.

Nothing prevents you from using FixPix on other platforms if possible.
I encourage developers to do so and appreciate appropriate
contributions.

Regards,
Guido

by **uglmil..** » Fri, 20 Sep 1996 04:00:00

> Just an observation, but even my older 386 runs at 800x600 64k. I'll

And I suspect it runs very poorly, with that much RAM set aside for
the graphics display, background BMP (if you use one), etc.
Personally, I set my display for 800x600 8-bit, or 800x600 16-bit if I
need it for a specific app.

by **Victor Eng** » Sat, 21 Sep 1996 04:00:00

>> >Check http://www.esc.de/homes/guivol/fixpix/

>> I don't know what relevance that site has to this discussion.
>Oh, I think it has *much* relevance! The topic tells about the
>common 216 color palette, which means 6 levels per primary
>component, which is only acceptable with additional dithering.

Right, but the page you cited does not mention any of this. When I
look at it, it simply discusses general information on a product
called Fixpix, which only runs on Unix. There is some discussion about
dithering: "A special feature of FixPix is the optional adapted
dithering scheme providing smooth image display
for less than 24-bit deep output devices." Neither the string "216"
nor "level" is found on this page. Perhaps it has changed, and you are
viewing an older version from your cache? The graphics on the page I
saw were JPEG images, so I did not see any examples of the supposed
dithering scheme.

Quote:>> I think
>> what Jack was getting at was that with an efficient 256 color image
>> optimizer, colors can be chosen very carefully to match the image.
>Yes, but this doesn't help if you want to benefit from 1-pass
>("on-the-fly") processing or multi-image display.

True.

Quote:>> With 64k colors, however, you cannot choose the colors (at least on
>> some platforms). You are stuck with a standard color distribution with
>> a bit depth of 5 bits each for red and blue and 6 bits for green.
>And then you can apply FixPix! 5 bits means 32 base levels, 6 bits
>means 64 base levels. This is much better than 6*6*6 or 8*8*4 in 8 bit
>modes, and with FixPix's additional dithering it looks *great*!

No argument here. Still unsure about how it relates to the discussion.

Quote:>> Perhaps on Unix that fixpix program will work, but on other platforms,
>I suspect you didn't read the page carefully. FixPix is not a program,

You would be correct. I scanned it, saw things like, "Currently
available implementations support the X Window System and the Virtual
Device Interface (VDI) under GEM (Graphic Environment Manager).
Contributions for other platforms would be greatly appreciated"
Furthermore, I couldn't find any relevance to the discussion after a
quick scan of the article. The article's target audience is
programmers, and the thread, I thought, was about why users configure
their workstations a particular way. How an algorithm could benefit an
end user, I don't know.

Quote:>it's a general algorithm and platform-independent! I used it since
>1992 on an Atari! And the VDI is rather old-fashioned from a today's
>point of view. If your platform can't use FixPix, then I would consider
>it to be very poor in design!;-)
>> I don't think it will. In any case, you can't rely on users to have
>> fixpix.
>Nothing prevents you from using FixPix on other platforms if possible.
>I encourage developers to do so and appreciate appropriate
>contributions.

Tell me how I can use FixPix to improve my Netscape Navigator sessions
or display of graphics in other programs. If this is really possible,
I'm interested. If not, I still don't see the relevance of your
discussion to the thread. Maybe I'm just missing something.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Victor Engel Vector Angle

http://the-light.com http://www.onr.com/user/lights

Very Computer

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

Paint Shop Pro Tutorials

3D-Button Tutorial

Shadow Text Tutorial

Making Selections for Special Effects

NEW The Magic of Masks

Coming Soon! Some PSP 4.1 tricks

Would you like to be informed of changes?

Click the "send" button at the bottom of the page after you have completed the form below and we'll e-mail you when you make changes or add new tutorials.

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?

What's with the 216 colors deal anyways?