ok i have a diamond multimedia video card and it works in 32 bit mode on my windows xp pc but i installed it on my windows 3.11 pc i just refurbished and it says promotion 640x480 16M colors (32 bpp) (lg font) does this mean i have 32-bit colors (16 milloin colors 0 on a windows 3.11 pc that i thought was only capable of 256 colors because if so im going to have a ball on this pc its just so amazing to see windows 3.11 work on true color modes !

Win3xx is not, in and of itself, limited to 256 colours (8 bit). If you have the correct driver and sufficient VRAM, higher resolutions are supported. Seeing is believing My other computer is a CRAY

>>Win3xx is not, in and of itself, limited to 256 colours<< Agreed, but you wouldn't notice a real difference between True Color (16M colors or 24/32-bit) & High Color (64K colors or 16-bit) unless you're doing some intense graphics work or wanting to run at a resolution above 1024x768 (which both your monitor and video card driver would have to support). You'd likely also increase the refresh speed by staying at 16-bit.

Yeah, no discernable advantage to 32-bit, I use 16-bit on my machine for Win9x & Win3xx. 256 colours used to be considered quite an achievement for Win3xx My other computer is a CRAY

if you actually got it all to work at 256 colours, idd be impressed, since you got it up to 32bit colours idd go no further. that alone will make a hell of a difference looking at web pages through 3.1x .