Interesting, thanks for the link. I also didn't realize you can just set
your output color depth in the Nvidia control panel! Are dispcal and
dispread able to take advantage of that when they display test patches, or
are they still limited to 8-bit for that?
On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Marwan Daar <marwan.daar@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My experimentation suggests that Windows desktop can use up to at least 10
bits of the 16 bit values. (nvidia GPU and CRT). Whether this is achieved
via dithering or not is a separate question. Also, while 10 bit precision
can be achieved, it is still only in the context of displaying 256 colors
simultaneously.
Also see this: https://hardforum.com/threads/
nvidia-or-amd-for-color-accuracy-and-calibration-features.
1873362/page-4#post-1042471971
IIRC Windows does support 10-bit color, but only in the fullscreen
exclusive mode of various hardware acceleration APIs like Direct3D and
OpenGL. I heard rumors they were working on enabling 10-bit color for the
desktop, but I have no idea whether that's true or what the timeline for
such a change would be if it is.
One thing I have wondered is whether anything actually uses more than 8
bits of the 16-bit RAMDAC values that Windows uses. I was thinking of
modifying dispcal locally to set the LUT directly instead of modifying the
color of the test patches, to see if that gives it access to more than 8
bits on my 10-bit monitor - but that would be a pretty major change
(potentially making the whole process more direct), and I haven't even
checked yet whether dispcal can easily access the LUT setting functions of
dispwin.
