#SNAPplus
Ironically, the finest 16 bit color I know is still TIGA, originally
developed for high-end AutoCAD and animation. I have no trouble scanning,
manipulating, etc. true color with my TIGA board. However, it's not at its best
with AVI because TI has never optimized the driver for AVI. It is rumored that
it's in the works, but…. It plays them okay, but with about 5% frames
skipped.
A great deal of software, however, is very much against anything higher
than 256 and even at resolutions much above 640X480, with Nautilus being a good
example. This is because Toolbook's still quite limited to 640X480 and it's
used by a ton of applications. With the #2 system here, which is an AST 486/33
with a 1 meg Paradise board in it, we've found that the best resolution on the
monitor is at 800X600, but Nautilus and most other Toolbook apps give a GPF
when play is attempted at that resolution. They will play full screen in
640X480/256 or in partial screen at 1024X768 or 1248X1024, but not at the
medium rez at all. And they won't expand to fill more than the 640X480 pixels
no matter what the rez. Until not only applications but development tools for
those apps become resolution independent (or at least switchable), we'll
continue to have these problems.