“Apple also does not support 10bit color rendering with Windows 8.1 via Bootcamp”

Apple’s Mac Pro doesn’t support 10-bit color depth display, even if users install Windows 8.1 through Bootcamp, according to C’T. The settings for 10bit display are then not present in the FirePro Control Center.

It’s been known for years that Apple doesn’t support 10bit color depth, but C’T found that this functionality isn’t there even if users install Windows on a Mac Pro. Heise writes about the findings. Windows itself has supported 10bit color depth since XP. Apple’s Windows drivers for installing Windows 8.1 via Bootcamp do not allow for 10bit playback, and AMD’s Windows 8.1 driver 14.301 for Apple’s Bootcamp does not show 10bit settings in the FirePro Control Center.

It is unclear why Apple bothers not to offer the display via Windows. In order to use 10bit display, the entire chain must support it, from software program and OS to video card, cable and display. The AMD FirePro cards used in the Mac Pro do support 10bit, and graphic arts displays also offer this. Photoshop for OS X does not support it, but the Windows version does.

Support for 10bit color depth enables the display of 1073 million colors, compared to 16.78 million colors at 8 bits per color channel.