Change color depth in X at runtime

a-v · n00b Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia, Rīga

Hello.

I run X in depth 24 for everyday use. However, I have to lower the screen resolution to 1024x768 (my DPF native is 1280x1024) when playing Warsow to get acceptable framerate. I found out that changing color depth to 16 gives significant performance boost (about 1.5 times greater) and that I can actually play 1280x1024 at color depth 16.

The problem is that I have to restart the X server or start the second one in order to switch from color depth 24 to 16. So my question is: can I somehow change the color depth of a running X server, just like changing resolutions? Both depths are specified in xorg.conf.

Thanks in advance.

didymos · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:14 am Post subject:

Umm, no, you can't. A lot of stuff can be altered on the fly, but color depth is not one of them.
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Thomas S. Howard

a-v · n00b Joined: 02 Mar 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Latvia, Rīga

That's a pity. ):

Can you explain why? I can hardly imagine that's a technological limitation. Maybe the feature is simply not implemented?

dusik · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:33 am Post subject:

Damn, this is one place where Windows beats us! Any improvements for us on the horizon?

I know configuring X has gotten substantially easier over the last few years, but even in Ubuntu, an "easy" distro, I've had to mess with xorg.conf myself to get video working properly. That's definitely a barrier.

-- EDIT: March 12, 2010 --

It is now very easy with e.g., xrandr -s 1920x1080