What is 24 bit color/true color?
The color of a pixel is formed by mixing three colors: Red, Green and Blue. The amount of each of these colors ranges from 0 to 255, an 8 bit value. So, the total number of unique colors available is 16.7 million (2 ^ 24). With a “normal” SVGA video card, you can pick any 256 of these colors (called a palette) to display on the screen at a time. If your picture has more than 256 unique colors, various methods can be used to come up with the 256 closest colors. A 24 bit color (aka ‘true color’) card doesn’t have this limitation, it can display any of the 16.7 million possible colors at a time. Since it doesn’t have to use close colors, it displays the true picture colors, thus the name ‘true color’. Note that many picture formats, including GIF, also have the 256 color limitation, so a true color card won’t improve the picture viewing at all. More recent picture formats, such as JPEG, support 24 bit color.
