The problem not is the gradient look bad in 16 or 24 bits, the problem is the color altered.
Really? It doesn't look like it on those images posted above. I was going to say also that it initially looks like the kind of effect you might get by displaying it in 16-bit and the OpenGL or graphics driver trying to convert the color resolution from 24bit to 16bit.
Or rather, it looks like the kind of effect you might get when BlitzMAX has to downsample the huge image, to fit within the limitations of your obsolete hardwares texture unit and memory. Why BMax no use the same tecnology to display images that B3d.
Because in BlitzMAX, all images are actually textures, not DirectDraw textures. This allows for hardware accelerated blending, lighting and transformation, on hardware produced with the last decade. that is no backguard compatibility for old cards??
Yes. Just not for obsolete ones. BlitzMAX requires at least an OpenGL 1.1 or (on Windows) a DirectX7 capable card, with working (and preferably Microsoft certified) drivers. I think that a good game no need necesary a big VIDEO CARD. With 4mb of VIDEO many good games run.
Name one.