[JohnBerea]

In Windows what advantage does 32-bit color give over 24-bit color? Does 32-bit have 11-11-10 bits per pixel instead of one byte each? From my limited experience with win32 programming I don't remember any API's that let programs specify colors with that much depth.

[dmitrygr]

it is usually RGBX8888 or XRGB8888, 4 bytes per pixel makes a lot of math easier

[JohnBerea]

So the last one isn't used, just padding for alignment. Got it.

[hyperrail]

The X byte of 32-bit color is nowadays used as the alpha channel (brightness), and is usually called A. But I'm not sure if Windows 95 supported alpha channels for display.

[kingcharles]

DirectDraw and Direct3D run on Windows 95 and both use alpha, so it's possible they could do something with it, but they also might just emulate it. It's been 27 years since I was writing video games for Windows 95 :p

[userbinator]

9x GDI doesn't support the alpha functions that are in NT GDI, possibly due to memory constraints.

[dmitrygr]

Win 9x family never did. Win NT family does