Also, with gaming a higher color depth may decrease your FPS depending on your video card and the game you are playing. If your computer is running low on memory, it may slow down the system. What are the disadvantages of having a higher color depth?Īs mentioned above, with a higher color depth it requires more system resources that make the computer work more. Many people report the picture being brighter and being less strenuous on their eyes when running at a higher color depth. With higher color depth, you get more visually appealing features like gradients and transparencies. A 64-bit processor comes in multiple cores that render it a. The major difference between the two of these architectures is the number of calculations performed per second, i.e., the speed of completing tasks. What are the advantages of having a higher color depth? It perfectly catered to the requirements until faster data handling became necessary, giving birth to the 64-bit operating system. However, if you are using a program with gradients, shadows, transparency, or other visual effects that require a wide range of colors you may notice a difference. Most users cannot tell much of a difference between 16-bit and 32-bit. Older computer and video cards may only be able to support up to 16-bit color. However, almost all computers today include video cards with enough memory to support 32-bit colors at most resolutions. With the alpha channel 32-bit color supports 4,294,967,296 color combinations.Īs you increase the support for more colors, more memory is required. Like 24-bit color, 32-bit color supports 16,777,215 colors but has an alpha channel it can create more convincing gradients, shadows, and transparencies. When an image is saved as a JPEG, some of its data gets discarded in a process referred to as lossy file. This leaves no room for an alpha channel, which means that while JPEGs can support over 16 million colors, they cannot support transparency.
Using 24-bit color, also called True color, computers and monitors can display as many as 16,777,215 different color combinations. JPEGs are 24-bit still raster images, with eight bits in each channel of the RGB color model. However, graphic intensive video games and higher resolution video can benefit from and take advantage of the higher color depths. With 16-bit color, also called High color, computers and monitors can display as many as 65,536 colors, which is adequate for most uses.
Whether you are viewing pictures, watching a video, or playing a video game a higher color depth is more visually appealing.
All three color depths use red, blue and green as standard colors, but its the number of color combinations and alpha channel that makes the difference. Is there a different between the different levels of color? The short answer is yes. Nearly all computers over the last five to ten years come standard with support for at least 16-bit color, with newer computers supporting 24-bit and 32-bit color.