8-bit Colors In A 32-Bit World
Hi Fred, I have an older program, Crazy for Ragtime, that was delightful, with MIDI, movies, and lots of history. Recently, I tried to install it on XP Pro. I also have 2 LG Flatron LCD monitors. The program would always crash. One day I discovered that it wanted to display in 256 colors. My monitors don't display that low. Is there any way to get around this problem. I have tried the Compatibility method without success but I hate to lose such a valuable program. Any thoughts? ---Hal Allert
Hmmm. XP's Compatibility Mode explicitly allows for 256 color limitations. Let's do a quick review:
Right click on the program you want to run in compatibility mode, select Properties, then Compatibility. Select the OS that the software was designed for--- say, Win95--- then select the display settings. For software with severe graphics limitations, check all three "display settings" options. If that doesn't work, try turning off "advanced text services" too.
Run that way, the program will think it's on, say, a Win95 machine with a 256-color display. XP will handle the translation from 256 colors up to whatever your system setting now is, and feed that to the monitors. The graphics card and monitors never "see" the original 256-color signal, and so can't be affected by it.
What the above does, in effect, is create a walled-off area in which the old software can run; a sort of lightweight virtual PC. If the software still won't work, then a full-blown virtual PC may be the answer; one in which you can install whatever the native OS for your software was. By configuring the virtual PC to reproduce the limitations of the day when the software was new, things should work.
More:
Compatibility Mode:
http://tinyurl.com/eg6zb
http://www.google.com/search?q=compatibility+mode
Virtual PCs:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=vmware&as_sitesearch=langa.com
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=vpc&as_sitesearch=langa.com
Color Depth On PCs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
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