Which XP registry key holds colour depth?

Does anyone know how can find the registry key in my XP Home system
that holds the colour depth please?

I have a 64MB NVidia Geforce2 MX/MX 400128bit bus, AGP, BIOS v
3.11.01.24, 64 MB, IRQ 11, TV Encoder Conexant Bt869. Driver version
81.98 installed Jan 2006.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:
Does anyone know how can find the registry key in my XP Home system
that holds the colour depth please?

I have a 64MB NVidia Geforce2 MX/MX 400128bit bus, AGP, BIOS v
3.11.01.24, 64 MB, IRQ 11, TV Encoder Conexant Bt869. Driver version
81.98 installed Jan 2006.


I don't know if I can help you precisely, but I think you are looking
for the WindowMetrics Key?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

As you might know, merely changing one value in the registry will not
boot your desktop to a different color depth.

To all users: Make backups of your registry prior to any editing (not
hard to do), and make super sure you know how to restore the registry
from a blinking cursor (can be tricky).

On Feb 16, 9:52 am, Terry Pinnell
wrote:
Does anyone know how can find the registry key in my XP Home system
that holds the colour depth please?

Terry -

It's been awhile since I poked around for that detail, and it likely
is a bit of a moving target between major driver releases for NV, but
you might look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\VIDEO to get
the GUID for your adapter, then look in the various controlset
branches for that GUID with a sub value of bitsperpel. That's where NV
stores it from what I recall.
Just changing it won't do much, though, the driver has to be reset to
use the new values.
I'm curious, why would you want to do this vs just using the control
panel for the driver? If you're writing a game, say, why not just use
the SetDisplayMode in DirectDraw?

R

"heycarnut" wrote:

On Feb 16, 9:52 am, Terry Pinnell
wrote:
Does anyone know how can find the registry key in my XP Home system
that holds the colour depth please?

Terry -

It's been awhile since I poked around for that detail, and it likely
is a bit of a moving target between major driver releases for NV, but
you might look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\VIDEO to get
the GUID for your adapter, then look in the various controlset
branches for that GUID with a sub value of bitsperpel. That's where NV
stores it from what I recall.
Just changing it won't do much, though, the driver has to be reset to
use the new values.
I'm curious, why would you want to do this vs just using the control
panel for the driver? If you're writing a game, say, why not just use
the SetDisplayMode in DirectDraw?

R

Thanks both.

I think that the WindowMetrics key reports and/or controls only the
desktop icon colour depth.

R: Good question! In fact it was just curiosity. I'm learning how to
use a program called Macro Express. Amongst its commands it can
read/write a registry key, and I was wondering if it that could
provide an effectively 1-click method of switching colour depth. Not
something I do very often mind you ;-) From your reply, it seems the
answer's almost certainly a No.

I'm not technically savvy with graphics, so your interesting
suggestion about SetDisplayMode in DirectDraw has also aroused my
(dangerous?) curiosity. Could you spell out how I would do that
please?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK