CivIII in 32 bit color?

Sarxis · October 8, 2001, 04:15

Keeping the pace going with yet another question about CivIII, I put forth this:

32bit color? Is this the color depth the game will run in?

Lemmy · October 8, 2001, 10:57

i think it will run in 16bit, i don't think everyone at home can support 32bit

/edit
16bit it is

Quote:

from civ3.com :

Video: DirectX® 8.0a-compatible video card* (must be able to display
1024x768x16 bit)

Inverse Icarus · October 8, 2001, 13:56

says at least. "be able to"

October 8, 2001, 14:04

Running at 32 bit compared to 16 bit is very unnoticible in games(generated graphics), as far as "looks" you will however get slower performance running at 32 bit.

If you have 'photo's' whether they are digital to begin with or scanned in later, 32 bit does make a small difference in quality. At least that is my experience in this matter.

August Borms · October 8, 2001, 14:15

Yeah, imo 32bit doesn't look better either, just a little different and it's only noticeable in screenshots (maybe I'm blind) however in alot of recent games there's no performance decrease, and some games even recommend to use 32bit for better performance...

October 8, 2001, 14:30

How can 32 bit provide increased "performance"? It can only increase picture quality, if it is even posible for certain images, which it isn't for all. Most images are still 16 bit or less, running at 32 bit only puts an unneeded strain on your video card and/or cpu.

GodSpawn · October 8, 2001, 19:32

Quote:

Originally posted by bigfree1
How can 32 bit provide increased "performance"? It can only increase picture quality, if it is even posible for certain images, which it isn't for all. Most images are still 16 bit or less, running at 32 bit only puts an unneeded strain on your video card and/or cpu.

It's because of the memory architecture that many graphics cards use. In order to keep memory prices down, they tend to go for industry-standard memory chips. These are usually designed for 32-bit access (although some also do 64 or 128 bit access).

Anyhow, the end result is that the memory can actually be accessed more quickly when accessing it in 32-bit blocks.

Sarxis · October 8, 2001, 22:05

Well to be honest- I think soon the '16 bit' age is going to be over. All of the new cards support 32 bit color, and these newer cards don't take much performance hit from running it.

But for CIV, 16 bit is satisfactory.

Master Marcus · October 8, 2001, 22:41

bigfree 1 is right. Even when comparing the 16/32 bit color with memory devourers like Sacrifice, Startopia, Black&White, UT , I found almost no difference - and that's 3D realm. So 16 bit will do just fine for CivIII.