The Creator accelerator exports eleven visuals on the X11 screen visual list. You can query these visuals using XGetVisualInfo(3) or XMatchVisualInfo(3). The linearity of a visual can be queried using XSolarisGetVisualGamma(3). The visuals are:
8-bit PseudoColor
8-bit StaticColor
8-bit GrayScale
8-bit StaticGray
8-bit TrueColor
8-bit DirectColor
8-bit StaticGray Linear
24-bit TrueColor
24-bit DirectColor
24-bit TrueColor Linear
8-bit PseudoColor Overlay
In the above list, a visual is non-linear (not gamma corrected) unless it is explicitly specified to be linear. Also, an 8-bit visual resides in the Creator accelerator underlay plane group unless it is explicitly specified to reside in the overlay. 24-bit visuals are always underlay.
Figure 3-1 shows how the Creator accelerator visuals relate to the pixel storage (plane groups) in the frame buffer. X, B, G, and R denote the four 8-bit channels in which pixel data can be stored. The figure shows pixel storage for Creator Series 1, 2, and 3 with extended overlay option disabled.
The B, G, and R channels can either store 8-bit pixel data (in the red channel only) or 24-bit pixel data (using all three channels). The R channel provides storage for windows of seven different visual types (the 8R visuals). The BGR channels provide storage for windows for three different visual types (the 24-bit visuals). Only one visual is provided by the X channel: 8X PseudoColor.
The colormap_size of the underlay visuals is 256. In the Creator Series 1 and 2, the colormap_size of the overlay visual is 256 - maxwids. The Creator Series 3 can be configured to use a full 256-color overlay or to run in Series 1 or 2 compatibility mode with 25 -maxwids colors.