What does the 32 mean in a 1024x768x32 setting.

[Saint71]

When Im playing games I set the resolution at like 1280x1024x32 or 1280x1024x16 I think. I know what 1280x1024 is but what does the 32 stand for.

 

[Ste]

I believe it is the Color Settings.
Like 16 Bit or 32 Bit.

I think -shrugs-

 

[Snake-Eyes]

Pretty sure Ste's right.

 

[Meithan]

Ste's right. The 32 means colors are encoded using 32 bits (4 bytes). This means the computer can recognize 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 different colors. At 24 bits, it's 16,777,216 colors ("16 millions colors") and at 16 bits, you get 65,536 colors. The old "256 colors" corresponds of course to 8 bits. The higher the "bit count", the smoother the colors will be.

Edit: For those interested, Wikipedia showed me wrong.

from Wikipedia
"32-bit color" is a misnomer when regarding display color depth. A common misconception is that 32-bit color produces 4,294,967,296 distinct colors. In reality, 32-bit color actually refers to 24-bit color (Truecolor) with an additional 8 bits either as empty padding space or to represent an alpha channel.

 

[Apokalipse]

the alpha channel is for transparency.
255 = completely transparent
0 = completely opaque