OT: Re: 24-bit-per-pixel limit to Gdk RGB ?

[Filip Van Raemdonck <mechanix debian org>]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 11:12:14PM +0100, Peter Finderup Lund wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Feb 2003, individual wrote:
>
> > That's interesting. I was always under the imprsesion that we have left
> > 24bpp displays far behind. Here's what my system says:
>
> Nope.  Sometimes the extra byte is used for an alpha channel -- the rest
> of the time it's wasted.

Am I missing something? We're talking about display device depths here, so
if I am not mistaken, the extra bits are always wasted unless they are
used for higher color depths per R/G/B channel.
Alpha channels are useful while manipulating data, but how does a monitor
display an alpha channel? Wouldn't the X server (assuming X11) have blended
the pixels already and just display everything in those 24 RGB bits (or 24 +
padding when running in 32 bit mode)?


Regards,

Filip

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