I have this problem since I reinstalled my system (fresh install, keeping /home), formerly it worked well. It looks like my desktop displays only a reduced color depth. The transparency effects look dithered and when watching a movie with vlc, the colors look like reduced color depth. How can I check which color depth is used and how can I change it?
TIA
You do not say which desktop you are using. In KDE you can adjust things in System settings>Colours. Other desktops may have similar options.
Ups, sorry. Yes, I am using KDE. But under Settings > Colors I only find the color schemes to select from. Actually I am using Breeze. But I didn’t find anything to set the color depth.
Please install current inxi version and provide here using code tags output from:
inxi -GxxS
An older inxi version is in standard TW repos.
inxi says:
System: Host: linux-c55v Kernel: 5.2.3-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.1.1
Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.16.3 tk: Qt 5.13.0 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM
Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190730
Graphics: Device-1: AMD Baffin [Radeon RX 460/560D / Pro 450/455/460/555/555X/560/560X]
vendor: Sapphire Limited driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:67ef
Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu FAILED: ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: <xdpyinfo missing>
OpenGL: renderer: Radeon RX 560 Series (POLARIS11 DRM 3.32.0 5.2.3-1-default LLVM 8.0.1)
v: 4.5 Mesa 19.1.3 direct render: Yes
inxi version is 3.0.35-00 (2019-07-15)
Both KInfoCenter and ‘kcmshell5 xserver’ will report the color depth in use, but may require xdpyinfo be installed first, as suggested by inxi output, as xdpyinfo is most likely where those utilities get that information:
~> xdpyinfo | grep -A2 dimens
dimensions: 1920x1200 pixels (406x254 millimeters)
resolution: 120x120 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
OK, installed xdpyinfo, here is the output
arne@linux-c55v:~/bin> ./inxi -GxxS
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = "",
LC_ALL = (unset),
LC_MONETARY = "en_DE.UTF-8",
LC_MEASUREMENT = "en_DE.UTF-8",
LC_TIME = "en_DE.UTF-8",
LC_COLLATE = "en_DE.UTF-8",
LC_NUMERIC = "en_DE.UTF-8",
LANG = "en_DE.UTF-8"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
System: Host: linux-c55v Kernel: 5.2.3-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.1.1
Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.16.3 tk: Qt 5.13.0 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM
Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190730
Graphics: Device-1: AMD Baffin [Radeon RX 460/560D / Pro 450/455/460/555/555X/560/560X]
vendor: Sapphire Limited driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:67ef
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu FAILED: ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Radeon RX 560 Series (POLARIS11 DRM 3.32.0 5.2.3-1-default LLVM 8.0.1)
v: 4.5 Mesa 19.1.3 direct render: Yes
arne@linux-c55v:~/bin> xdpyinfo | grep -A2 dimens
dimensions: 1920x1080 pixels (508x285 millimeters)
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
Does this mean, I do already have 24 bit color depth enabled?
Thanks
Hi
If you check the output this is the likely error…
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: ==> amdgpu FAILED <==: ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
Can you upload the Xorg log via susepaste (you may need to install);
cat .local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log | susepaste -t "Xorg Log" -n "Anonymous" -e 0
I believe that represents two inxi errors, and the meaning of the output is this:
Display: x11
server: X.Org 1.20.5
driver: amdgpu
(FAILED: ati)
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
The ati DDX should “fail”, as in not remain loaded, when the preferred amdgpu has succeeded. Output I would expect might be this:
Display: x11
server: X.Org 1.20.5
driver: amdgpu
unloaded: ati,fbdev,modesetting,vesa
The inxi devel version has had many revisions since the 3.0.2-1 version in TW, particularly since 3.0.5-0, and is now up to 3.0.5-11 as pinxi.
“depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32” indeed means 24 bit is in current use.
Hi
Ahh the colon 
I don’t even see that output here…
pinxi -GxxS
System: Host: bert Kernel: 5.2.3-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.1.1 Desktop: Gnome 3.32.2 wm: gnome-shell
dm: GDM Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190730
Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu
v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.0 chip ID: 1002:9874
Device-2: AMD Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu
v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6900
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu compositor: gnome-shell resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: AMD CARRIZO (DRM 3.32.0 5.2.3-1-default LLVM 8.0.1) v: 4.5 Mesa 19.1.3 direct render: Yes
DRI_PRIME=1 pinxi -GxxS
System: Host: bert Kernel: 5.2.3-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.1.1 Desktop: Gnome 3.32.2 wm: gnome-shell
dm: GDM Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190730
Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu
v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.0 chip ID: 1002:9874
Device-2: AMD Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu
v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6900
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu compositor: gnome-shell resolution: 1366x768~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon R7 M340 (ICELAND DRM 3.32.0 5.2.3-1-default LLVM 8.0.1) v: 4.5 Mesa 19.1.3
direct render: Yes
xdpyinfo | grep -A2 dimen
dimensions: 1366x768 pixels (361x203 millimeters)
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
pinxi -V
pinxi 3.0.35-11 (2019-08-04)
Many thanks for the help to all!
I expected this, as after one of the last updates the colors in vlc are back to normal. So it is only in KDE Plasma, where
some elements are nicely opaque, others are badly dithered more or less. I will look into KDE configuration.