Re: WM & Bit Depth

["Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn" <xkahn cybersites com>]

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 jay@pathways.sde.state.sc.us wrote:

> How off the wall is this?  This would be most useful for games that wanted
> a particular color depth, since generally when you're gaming you want to
> immerse yourself and don't care if your other windows disappear
> temporarily.  I want to play doom without having to restart my X server.

Jay,
	I haven't read any of ther replies yet to this letter, so I'm
sorry if I say the same things everyone else has said.  It might be
possible to do this as an extension to the X server.  However, this is as
messy as any other X extension is.  (The benefit is that you can query the  
X server for the extension, etc.)  However, AccelX has a different
solution to the problem.  AccelX uses layers to achieve mutliple color
depths on the same screen.  (I think the Amiga used this scheme first,
but I'm not sure.)  This works really well if you have a supported video
card.  If you don't, then it just doesn't work.  If you do, then
everything is transparent.  (Except things flash sometimes.)

						-Ben

------------------------------------ |\      _,,,--,,_  ,) ----------
Benjamin Kahn                        /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
(212) 924 - 2220                    |,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\
ben@cybersites.com --------------- '---''(_/--' (_/-' ---------------
 If you love something, write it in C; if it compiles, it is yours; 
                     if it doesn't, it never was.