General-purpose computing on graphics processing units: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:43, 11 April 2006

Revision as of 08:09, 26 April 2006

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===Data Types===

For many years graphics cards only supported paletted or integral color types. Various formats are available, each containing a red element, a green element, and a blue element. Sometimes an additionadditional alpha value is added, to be used for transparency. Common formats are:

*8 bits per pixel - Palette mode, where each value is an index into a table with the real color value specified in one of the other formats. Possibly 2 bits for red, 3 bits for green, and 3 bits for blue.

*16 bits per pixel - Usually allocated as 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, and 5 bits for blue.