256 colors and Direct3D

[Mendow]

I need some help here: i'm trying to emulate an old school feel limiting the color palette (no more than 20 colors haha). The problem is, the 256 colors mode doesn't work with Direct3D, and I need this mode because some computers have little performance issues with the others. The game will have some fade effects, so I really need to limit the colors. Thanks in advance :*)

[Looki]

It's impossible. You will have to hardcode it.

[UrbanMonk]

Or you could use software mode.

If it's really as old school as you say then HWA mode shouldn't be necessary.

[Mendow]

Aw, too bad. Software mode works fine on my old PC but on the new it shows some screen tearing, and if I resize it only gets worse. By the way, someone told me it's dual core incompatibility or something, anyone knows about it? Thanks again :*)

[Dynasoft]

If you turn v-sync on you will stop the screen tearing, but you could lose some speed.

Also keep in mind that real 256-colour apps won't work right on Windows 7 if they use the first 32 (IIRC) colours in the palette, as Windows plays with them.

[Looki]

Dynasoft, could you elaborate on that? I've successfully used a full palette on Windows 7 (random testing, nothing serious, but it worked).

[Dynasoft]

I'm not sure of the exact repro steps, but all the old non-MMF2 256-colour games I have will show with technicolour madness unless explorer.exe is killed, due to it forcing the first set of colours to primary colours.

I assumed it was a global issue because it happens to all 256-colour things I've tried. MMF may be immune though...

[Looki]

Thanks. Seems like it. I actually rotated a custom palette at runtime without any issues.

EDIT: Actually, I just remembered that some colors were indeed fixed - but not 32 by far! R,G,B,C,M,Y, black and white IIRC...

[Dynasoft]

I did say "IIRC" (If I Remember Correctly). I guess I didn't.

Apparently in 256-colour mode Windows reserves 20 colours in the palette, the first and last 10 colours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_palettes#Microsoft_Windows_defaul t_20-color_palette

[Looki]

Yes, that's definitely them... more than I remembered. Thanks.