whats the deal with OS9 and BW/16color modes?

[goodoldmacs]

i have read conflicting information like you can enable the modes if you use particular monitors or if you replace the monitors extension with some specific older version, etc etc

it seems like one of those things though where the only reason programs wont run in higher color modes is just because the program itself is set to stop running?  like even if the system were in 256 or higher, the program would still run fine...if it wasn't closing itself down?

in all the years of mac tweaking is there no trick to either 1) get those modes available in OS9 or 2) trick the program into running anyway?

[joevt]

It has nothing to do with the display and everything to do with the hardware and driver.

SheepShaver's emulated graphics device supports all color depths and resolutions in Mac OS 9.0.4.

A program shouldn't depend on a color depth unless it's using its own drawing routines.

A game that's made for the original black and white Macs, on top of requiring a black and white mode, may also require a specific resolution (512x342) and even a specific framebuffer address.

I suppose you could make an emulated framebuffer in a newer Mac and copy that buffer to the real framebuffer at 60fps (or less if that takes too much processing power). Changing the framebuffer address is probably not possible (unless you can do something tricky with virtual memory?) - it may be easier to patch the program.