How do I set my display to 256 colors?

[karatepig64]

I have an old Windows 95 game that I have been wanting to play for about a year now, but both of my desktop computers will not install/run it, even in compatibility mode (one has Windows XP, the other, Windows 7). So imagine my delight when I discovered that Wine has a setting for windows 95 and 98 (both of which work)! So I installed my game on my laptop. The only trouble now is, the game only runs in 256 colors and in a 640x480 resolution (hey, it's old!). I changed the resolution, but can't find the controls for colors....Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[joywright123]

Hey Dude

I had also used windows 95 operating system.
But Its Microsoft's oldest version of Os.
Then u can try windows XP for this because it accepts All Displays colors.
And as my thaught u will sure change 256 displays colors.

[disciple]

What happens when you try to run it?

Hopefully someone can answer who knows what they're talking about, but it sounds like a rather rare/obscure problem for the Puppy forums, so you might need to look elsewhere. From what I've read 256 colour games should run in wine with the wrong colour depth, although they may perform badly. But then there is talk of all sorts of bugs and workarounds and stuff (http://wiki.winehq.org/256ColorsWorkarounds, http://wiki.winehq.org/ColorIndexMode), so I don't quite understand what the real situation is.

[mikeb]

If its an old game its possibly dos based and might work ok with dosbox...I have worms for the pc and it runs in dosbox rather than wine.
Does it need the cd in to run ...this may be related to the problem.

mike

[karatepig64]

Yes, it does require the cd to play. Whenever I try to play, I get an error message, which, to paraphrase, says I must have my monitor set to a 256 color palette. I am familiar with this, back when I had a windows 98 pc, I had to change the setting, and it was very simple to do. I just kinda took it for granted that linux would be capable of saving display settings for individual programs as well.....

[disciple]

Is that the only error message you get though? Because it sounds like that error message is normal, but games play anyway... Are you starting this program from a terminal, to make sure you see all the error messages?

[karatepig64]

That is the only error I am getting. The game is very old, mind you. When it first came out, it was for dos and Windows 3x (it was compatible with 1x and 2x as well). They released an updated version for Windows 95, and the 256 color requirement was them taking advantage of "the latest and greatest". Like I said, I have played the game on a Windows 98 machine, and it simply would not, and will not, work in anything other than 256 colors. Is there really no way to change the color settings in Puppy? I have always heard that you can do more with Linux, but this seems like a pretty basic function to be missing.

[disciple]

The ability to play an antique Windows game in 256 colours is not a "pretty basic function", certainly not for Linux - maybe for Wine I guess.

In Puppy you can change the colour depth using the same xorg or xvesa wizards that you go through when you first boot it on a machine, or probably by editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf; I can't even remember if 8 bit colour is an option in the wizards. You can use a little script to switch between two different xorg configurations if you need it.

Linux doesn't have programs that need to be run with reduced colour depths, so I don't think you can change it on the fly. Like I said, I think it is a very rare problem so there might not even be anyone on the puppy forum who knows the answer, and you might need to look elsewhere. It doesn't help that your post got knocked off the "unanswered posts" list without getting an answer though

That is the only error I am getting.

But are you starting it from the terminal, so that you see all the Wine messages, not just messages the program displays?

and it simply would not, and will not, work in anything other than 256 colors.

What I was saying though is that it sounds like programs that require 256 colours in Windows are supposed to work in Wine, even though they still display an error message. If you run it from a terminal and there aren't any other errors, and you don't want to swap your xorg settings around, I suggest either looking elsewhere for help, or trying one of the workarounds I linked to, using xephyr or something.