Hi..
 >  BM> easier... have you tried
 >  BM> coding for EGA 320x200x16?  Weird thing is, 16-color
 >  BM> modes are usually SLOWER
 >  BM> than 256-color modes.
 > that's cause you don't know how to take advantage of them. an optimized
 > version of 16-color stuff is always faster than an optimized version of
 > 256-color stuff.
5 years ago, yes. Today, no. If you're still programmming for 8 and 16-bit 
ISA bus cards, probably still yes, even. But reality is that modern, fast, 
local bus video cards are much faster in 256 colour modes than 16-color 
des.
Even the most highly optimized 16-colour code still involves much more CPU 
time than 256 colour mode, I/O instructions (notoriously slow, esp. in V86 
mode) and is just plain unusable most of the time. Write mode 0 is what you 
are left with for most 'real' every day operations.
Remember, 16-colour modes date to EGA times... therein lies the performace 
also. 256 colour modes simply rely on how fast CPU access to display ram is - 
something that *HAS* improved vastly, espescially with local bus video cards.
    Craig
--- FMail/386 1.20+
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