16 or 32 bit?

Try both; just choose the one that runs faster on your system.

am always running on 32 its better though

Actually it is theoretically possible that 32 bit can run faster than 16 bit depending on what your doing. Ususally the speed change isnt noticed, but its kind of like if you switched your desktop colors to 16 colors (not bits) then it will boot much slower. The same applies to 32 bit and 16 bit where 32 bit can actually be faster but the speed increase is minimal.

with the n 64 you probley wont see any diffrance really using 16 bit color over 32 bit color. Reason i dont think the games were in 32 bit color to begin with.

short answer: use 32bpp
long answer: n64 used max 16bit textures afaik, but after rendering gave an effective resolution (with dithering) of about 21bit colour, hence 16bpp is not enough to avoid banding in pj64. remember also pj is using hle so the game is effectively reconstructed from its parts hence we are not limited to what the original hardware could manage. the video plugin only uses 32bpp textures when it detects that 16bpp won't be enough, also this is automatic now on cards that support 32bpp textures. the difference in image quality can be dramatic in places

1st pic shows zelda file select screen with 16bpp textures:

2nd pic shows zelda file select screen in with 32bpp textures:

(you better be on 32bpp desktop now before looking at those!)

Eagle said:

Actually it is theoretically possible that 32 bit can run faster than 16 bit depending on what your doing. Ususally the speed change isnt noticed, but its kind of like if you switched your desktop colors to 16 colors (not bits) then it will boot much slower. The same applies to 32 bit and 16 bit where 32 bit can actually be faster but the speed increase is minimal.

Click to expand...

Sorry to contradict, 16 colors (aka 4bpp) is slow because it uses the default *vga.drv or similar (depending on your OS). I don't think my GF2 lets me even boot into 4bpp, let alone switch to it on the fly, so nothing to do with the 16-32bpp thingie.
For applications using 3D hardware acceleration 16bpp should _always_ be faster or as fast as 32 bpp unless the drivers are very crappy.

yeah but the difference in speed between 16 and 32bpp on any halfway decent system should be negligible, but in 16bit you never know when the graphics could look better, hence i'd use 32bit unless you are desperate for speed and find 16bit faster.

I only experienced a speed difference b/n 16 and 32 on one game in PJ64 .. that was Perfect Dark. Switching to 16bit cut down on the choppy audio and lurchy gameplay and slowdowns enough to make the game playable. At that time I was using 1.5beta and as an example of the limited gain going to 16 got me, Goldeneye was still choppy and (for me) unplayable even aftyer switching to 16bit.

Now of course 1.5 is out and both these games plus many more play near glitch free and at a smooth 60fps. In fact I've been enjoying the new verison enough that up till today I haven't even tried going back to 32 to see if it would work as well. But seeing Smiff's screenshots tells me maybe I should, although I don't agree that the difference is all THAT dramatic. Well, let me put it this way ... yes, the 32bit screen above is dramatically superior to the 16bit, but if it means choppy audio and lurching gameplay it isn't worth it.

hotshitu said:

Eagle said:

Actually it is theoretically possible that 32 bit can run faster than 16 bit depending on what your doing. Ususally the speed change isnt noticed, but its kind of like if you switched your desktop colors to 16 colors (not bits) then it will boot much slower. The same applies to 32 bit and 16 bit where 32 bit can actually be faster but the speed increase is minimal.

Click to expand...

Sorry to contradict, 16 colors (aka 4bpp) is slow because it uses the default *vga.drv or similar (depending on your OS). I don't think my GF2 lets me even boot into 4bpp, let alone switch to it on the fly, so nothing to do with the 16-32bpp thingie.
For applications using 3D hardware acceleration 16bpp should _always_ be faster or as fast as 32 bpp unless the drivers are very crappy.

Click to expand...

I guess your right, I forgot about the driver switch detail. I've said it before, but I really need to stop trying to help when its ~2:00am cause I usually have no idea what I'm typing.

here this will clear everything up

16bit=faster
32bit=pretty
any questions?

well you will always have 32bit textures in v1.5 when the plugin wants to use them (unless plugin detects your hardware can't do it e.g. Voodoo3). The colour render depth will always be equal to desktop colour depth when running windowed (this is not PJ's limitation, its also why some people can't get PJ to init with a 32bit desktop), for fullscreen you can choose (using the Full Screen Resolution menu). It defaults to 640x480 16bit fullscreen just because that's safer from a system compatibility point of view, most people should immediately change that to 32bit. We can't do anything about people starting PJ with a 32bit desktop and a card that can't do 32bit 3d in a window...