Why are windows10 display colours defaulted to 8bit RGB??

Davidk said:

This 'issue' isn't just my display: the friend I mentioned uses 2 - IPS234 and S24D300 - and internet forum threads on the issue all about the same configuration: 8bits RGB colour for the display in the win10 panels.
So, your explanation implies that it's not just 8bits. Please clarify just what you mean in terms that are a bit less confusing.

Most monitors are 8 bit, there are a few 10 bit panels, but they cost some serious $$.
The 32 bit you see on the right is a whole different thing.

Try Googling: 8 bit panel vs. 10 bit panel
Then Google: 16 bit color depth vs. 32 bit color depth.

Davidk said:

So, a google search turned up this:
"an 8 bit panel is capable of producing 256 shades of one individual colour. As we have 3 primary colours so that would mean it is possible to have 256 X 256 X 256=16.7 million colours."
That 16.7 million colours bit fits the display spec.
Am I correct in thinking that this is on a per pixel basis for the display?

I don't remember. All I know for sure is that the specs you are seeing are normal.

Monitors have a bit spec, like 6, 8, 10.


Here's Nvidia Control Panel... same specs.

Davidk said:

Way back when moses was a boy, the display world talked in terms of bits per pixel to indicate an ability to display colour. 8 bits was crappy, more bits (a greater colour depth expressed in bits/pixel was better). And for a while that was how things progressed.

But the geeks are now confusing us with tech speak. It's pretty clear that an expression of colour capacity as 8bits RGB is confusing. Consolidating the responses here, it would have been much clearer to simply say that windows can manage a colour depth of 24bits per pixel for displays.

Thanks guys.

Way back when I was a boy... I remember being ecstatic when we went from 2 colors on the screen, to 8 colors.
We all thought we died and went to heaven.
Now monitors with 16.7 million and 1.07 billion colors are commonplace.

Davidk said:

We old farts are still good for something - even if it's to remember the good old days.

Yeah, things were different back in the CRT days. I've always wondered if the programming teams at Microsoft decided for commonality to keep their default images in a format useful in any computer running Windows but whether a custom image would render better. But then a better image's file size would play a part, e.g. a RAW image from a camera usually will be at about 20MB size while the same image as a JPEG would be 3 to 5MB.