Comments, suggestions, ...

[Fingers]

However there is a definite difference between writing 24-bit software graphics code from scratch and using 8-bit code you already have. That's the "time" part of spacetime.

[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).

[Shadowcat]

Fingers: Oh I see! A slight misinterpretation there on my part.

From the outside it does seem like something that shouldn't be a major hassle to change, but I realise that's easy to say when you don't have to write the code.

If you get the time to change it, it sure would be nice. Not really a priority, though.