Boot Logo - what the hell?

[Boz]

I spend all this time makin a ***NICE*** looking boot logo. I mean, I spent hours forkin' around with the palette and ended up with something I can live with. When I was finally in a spot to throw "Bootskin" on my Mame PC with my logo goodness, the colors were all off.

Is it possible that some computer BIOSes have a limited color palette from which to work and because I don't know what that is or how to get at it, my time and effort is really trial and error?

Crap!

(Image: 640 x 480 x 4bpp. Borrowed "Monika" from Felsirs post over in the art forum)

[bleemus]

Not sure why it wouldn't work... but here is a link to what looks like a decent howto.

http://wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?AID=97764

Cool pic, hope it works out for you.

[squire]

hey bleemus.
i was dealing with same promblem..your taskbar icon has to consist of the sam color theroy of the main pic or you get a really bad distorted look..
use this app and you promblems go away...
http://www.desktopgadgets.com/Download.aspx?GadgetID=52&type=0

[Boz]

Not sure why it wouldn't work... but here is a link to what looks like a decent howto.

http://wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?AID=97764

Cool pic, hope it works out for you.

Hmmm... That's interesting. That's the exact tut I used to get started. It leaves out a few steps which I had to figure out on my own (i.e. you can't set your indexed colors to 16. You must set it to 15 or lower or the image ends up being an 8-bit image)

I'm just wonderin' about my PC bios and what appears to be a limited palette.

[krick]

Is it possible that some computer BIOSes have a limited color palette from which to work and because I don't know what that is or how to get at it, my time and effort is really trial and error?

Yes, many are limited to a 256 color palette.

What motherboard do you have?

[Boz]

Yes, many are limited to a 256 color palette.

What motherboard do you have?

I think it's an MSI 845PE Max. (I think.)

[Organic Jerk]

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to here...  Are you talking about the Windows logo boot screen with the moving bar?  Or are you talking about the Computer BIOS boot screen that you would typically see 1sec or so from pressing the on button(typically a manufacturer logo)?

Wincustomize's tutorial there is specifically referring to the Windows boot screen (specifically with use of their BootSkin app), NOT the bios one.  The WINDOWS boot screen (If I'm not mistaken) has a pallete limitation of 256 colors, while your bios boot screen will usually have a pallete limitation of 16 colors or less.  It's probably possible that maybe certain motherboards would allow their bios logos to be more, considering I'm speaking from years of "older" comp experience, but I doubt it, since manufacturers wouldn't really want to pay the extra money for more space on a mobo's limited cache JUST for a high quality bitmap image.

Beyond just a pallete limitation, altering your bios boot screen is a dangerous process if your mobo manufacturer didn't already open the door for you with some sort of software...

I have an HP Vectra VL400 and I plan on trying to alter the Bios image as well, but I'm going to have to try and find some sort of resource on how to hack a bios flash update with my own image to do so... very risky...



Then again, if you were just referring to the Windows boot screen.....256... 

[krick]

Yes, many are limited to a 256 color palette.

What motherboard do you have?

I think it's an MSI 845PE Max. (I think.)

I *think* that one can handle 256 color images.  Have you tried knocking your image down to 256 colors to see if it works?

[gamecreature]

I'm reasonably certain that Windows XP MUST use a 640 x 480 4-bit (16 color) boot screen. That's the nature of the beast. They want to make sure that it still looks good even if you boot up in safe mode.

[MYX]

yup, you only get a few (16) colors. I do not think that web safe is important here as you are the only viewer. If you work within Photoshop, when you index your colors, you can make sure that the colors are of your own choosing. Any Gradiations will look speckeled or banded between colors as there are not enough colors to make a smooth transition. It is best to make a color pallet of 16 colors and make sure you stick with it. Starting with vectors can help with this so you design with solids.

Here is a link to the BYOAC WIKI about this.

It took me about 3 tries to make it look reasonably ok. I made it upstairs on my graphics computer, put it onto a thumb drive ran down stairs, crawled inside my cab, loaded it, restarted the machine only to find that the colors on the arcade monitor were brighter than my computer monitor. Patience. That it all. Once I am done configuring the cab (which is taking forever) I plan to totally redo my bootskin.

[krick]

I'm reasonably certain that Windows XP MUST use a 640 x 480 4-bit (16 color) boot screen. That's the nature of the beast. They want to make sure that it still looks good even if you boot up in safe mode.

We're talking about the motherboard splash screen, not the windows boot screen.

[gamecreature]

I'm reasonably certain that Windows XP MUST use a 640 x 480 4-bit (16 color) boot screen. That's the nature of the beast. They want to make sure that it still looks good even if you boot up in safe mode.

We're talking about the motherboard splash screen, not the windows boot screen.

Are you sure? I didn't think bootskin dealt with that. My mistake.

[krick]

I'm reasonably certain that Windows XP MUST use a 640 x 480 4-bit (16 color) boot screen. That's the nature of the beast. They want to make sure that it still looks good even if you boot up in safe mode.

We're talking about the motherboard splash screen, not the windows boot screen.

Are you sure? I didn't think bootskin dealt with that. My mistake.

Errr...  I stand corrected.  I was thrown off by the mention of the BIOS in the original post.  My bad.

[Boz]

I'm so pleased with myself when I can actually sound like I know WTF I'm talking about, all the while mixing technologies to the point where no one in the thread ends up knowing what I'm talking about. 

Actually, what I *was* talking about was the Windows Boot logo that is replaced by the utility "Boot Skin". I think I referenced the maximum color palette of the BIOS because I was confused as to why a custom XP boot logo would actually require only a 4-bit image. So without getting into *that* conversation...

It seems to me that Boot Skin should accept (and correctly display) my custom boot logo (with the colorful scrolling bar) without screwing up the colors like it does. I didn't find anything in the documentation that says it's limited to a specific palette. The image I posted above is a true 4-bit image and has the exact measurements required by the utility, but Monika's skin is all messed up.

Here's a pic of the image as it looks while booting. Compare this to the image it's supposed to be. I'll post it again as I boot my main workstation with this same logo.

[Boz]

BTW, I didn't even know that section was in the wiki. Thanks MYX.

I just booted both my main workstation and my Mame computer using the MS method (boot.bmp in Windows dir + boot.ini switches) and the graphic came up *beautifully*. So... clearly my problem is either with the application Boot Skin, or in my implementation of it. As I said earlier, I followed a tutorial that someone posted here, but there's a pure nuts-n-bolts version on the wiki that I'm gonna walk through real quick.

I'll let ya'll know.

[Boz]

Well, I messed around with "Boot Skin" for a while and have decided that there's nothing I can do to make the image display as it should. I can live without a progress bar, though it would be nice to have. Doing things the Microsoft way produces much better image results. I'll just add some text that says that it's "loading" or "initializing" and be done with it.

Thanks for all the feedback, ya'll.