Color keying vs image transparency?

SDL Development
1

can anyone tell me which is better and/or faster?

using color keying so that black is transparent

or

using an image type that supports an alpha channel like png or gif to handle
the transparent parts

thanks!

2

Just FYI, GIF does not have an alpha channel. It has a transparent color,
if you want one, which is pretty much the same concept SDL uses with the
color-key.

Color-key is definitely faster, since there’s no pixel combination going on.
It either draws a new pixel, or leaves the old one there.

-bill!On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 01:43:27PM -0700, Alan Wolfe wrote:

can anyone tell me which is better and/or faster?

using color keying so that black is transparent

or

using an image type that supports an alpha channel like png or gif to handle
the transparent parts