game-editor.com

Does anyone know if there is any benefit in performance for mobile devices (specifically Pocket PCs), or if there is any other reason why it would be good to restrict the palette of a game to 256 colours over the freedom of a 24bit palette?

It used to be in the good ol days you would get better performance on pc's if you lowered the color depth. Not so in pocket pc's. They have built in a certain color depth, and even if you specify 256 colors, it will still use the 16.7 million it supports but restrict itself to 256 colors. In fact most pocket pc's don't really have 16.7 million different colors and can actually only display around 40,000 at any one time. The ppc's adjust there palette of 40,000 colors to give the illusion of true 32 bit color. So the answer is no, you will get absolutely 0 percent savings, due to the specific hardware built into a ppc.

Hmm, how about in terms of GE performance (really a question for Makslane I guess)? Will an exported game run better if a fixed 256 8bit palette is used? Or does this really not matter anymore!?

Palettes are adjusted to 24/32 bit internally by GE.

Thanks guys