the situation is different in the case of directcolor (truecolor and highcolor). in this case, the value stored in the video memory is not translated but is passed directly to the d/a converter. this means that the full color information must be saved for each pixel. the meanings of the terms truecolor and highcolor can be confused, as they are not always used unambiguously.

    highcolor

    highcolor usually describes a 16-bit wide graphics mode, while truecolor should only be used for the more professional 24-bit mode (or 32-bit) mode.

    most common are (r-g-b) 5-6-5 (e.g. xga) and 6-6-4 (e.g. i860). 5-6-5 means that 5 bits are used for each of red and blue and 6 bits are used for green. in the case of 6-6-4, 6 bits are used for red and green and 4 bits for blue. both ways of assigning the bits correspond to the color sensitivity of the human eye: this is highest for green and lowest for blue. 65,536 different colors can be displayed.

    truecolor

    the truecolor mode is more complex, using 24 bits per pixel. here, 8 bits are available for each color component (256 levels), resulting in 16.7 million different color hues. there are more colors available than pixels on the screen (1.3 million pixels at a resolution of 1280 x 1024).