[Pfhoenix]

Doesn't SDL have methods for loading 24bit images from file? I've used SDL before (an old version, even), and I don't recall ever being limited to 8bit palettized textures. If not, there is an SDLImage lib, if I remember the name correctly.

I agree with Shadowcat here; I can't think of a single reason to not be using 24/32bit images for everything (well, I suppose to avoid loading 300MB of textures to the video card, but if you aren't really hurting on texture memory usage, this isn't an issue).