# Is it possible to increase number of colours in the colour palette? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [August 31, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162 "2023-08-31T16:48:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WoodysWorkshop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea666f/32.png) [@WoodysWorkshop](https://forum.makecode.com/u/WoodysWorkshop)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/1 "2023-08-31T16:48:54Z")
I previously asked about changing the screen resolution: [Here](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-change-the-screen-resolution/22001/3) And now I was wondering: at the moment, the game has a limited colour palette, is it possible to make games which use a full spectrum of colours on an RGB scale? Of course, these games are not intended to run on an ‘arcade’ device, just locally on PC. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![UnsignedArduino](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/unsignedarduino/32/592_2.png) [@UnsignedArduino](https://forum.makecode.com/u/UnsignedArduino)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 4:57pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/2 "2023-08-31T16:57:40Z")
No. ~~(sentence)~~ ---
**Author:** ![Mega0star01](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/mega0star01/32/14784_2.png) [@Mega0star01](https://forum.makecode.com/u/Mega0star01)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2023, 4:23pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/3 "2023-09-01T16:23:39Z")
F but no. ---
**Author:** ![WoodysWorkshop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ea666f/32.png) [@WoodysWorkshop](https://forum.makecode.com/u/WoodysWorkshop)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2023, 4:28pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/4 "2023-09-01T16:28:49Z")
@richard Is this something that could be implemented as a mod/extension? ---
**Author:** ![richard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/richard/32/5417_2.png) [@richard](https://forum.makecode.com/u/richard)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2023, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/5 "2023-09-01T16:43:35Z")
I’m afraid not. The internal representation of images that arcade uses represents each pixel with 4 bits, which means that only 16 colors are possible. There is no way for an extension to change that. We do this to save memory; the hardware that we operate on has extremely strict memory requirements. For example, let’s take a look at the meowbit which uses a STM32F401RET6 processor. It has a total of 96KB RAM. With 4 bits per pixel, each pixel in an image takes up 0.5 of a byte. Therefore, the screen takes up: ```auto 160 * 120 * 0.5 = 9600 Bytes ``` Arcade also double buffers the screen, which means we actually have two copies of the screen in memory. All in all, that means _just the screen_ is taking up 20% of the available memory on the device. If we were to increase the number of colors, it would double that amount, leaving even less for the actual program. ---
**Author:** ![richard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/richard/32/5417_2.png) [@richard](https://forum.makecode.com/u/richard)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/6 "2023-09-01T16:44:50Z")
Now you’re right that computers don’t have these same memory constraints, but arcade was written so that all of our game engine code runs the same on both computers and hardware. It’s very tough to change one and not the other. ---
**Author:** ![Sarge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/sarge/32/19590_2.png) [@Sarge](https://forum.makecode.com/u/Sarge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2023, 4:45pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/7 "2023-09-01T16:45:40Z")
Can we like, inscribe this post on a wall somewhere? Or at least the top of the forum. I have a feeling this has been asked so many times, and answered all the same, so this would be pretty helpful to have around ---
**Author:** ![SouperMediocre1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/soupermediocre1/32/22579_2.png) [@SouperMediocre1](https://forum.makecode.com/u/SouperMediocre1)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/8 "2025-05-19T22:15:30Z")
isn’t there a color extension that sort of does this? I might just be blind but it looked it could ease between any colors. i think it might only work with one color at a time though, because I couldn’t get it to change a variable color to another color. ---
**Author:** ![WoofWoof](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/woofwoof/32/32523_2.png) [@WoofWoof](https://forum.makecode.com/u/WoofWoof)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/9 "2025-05-20T16:55:52Z")
The color extension simply changes which colors are which. It changed the palette, but does not add colors. All images in the entire game will be effected by the change, so if something had white in it and you changed the white color to blue, now everything in the game that had white will have blue. This is because “white” is 0001 in image memory, and you are changing the color that “0001” will put on the screen. ---
**Author:** ![The4Lexanator](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/the4lexanator/32/32913_2.png) [@The4Lexanator](https://forum.makecode.com/u/The4Lexanator)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/10 "2026-05-15T16:34:25Z")
Technically there is a simple answer to this which Microsoft probably won’t do is that you could just have separate Makecode Arcade Applications for games that you want to go on Console (or whatever you call it) and ones that we just want play on Desktop (Just sayin) ---
**Author:** ![WoofWoof](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/woofwoof/32/32523_2.png) [@WoofWoof](https://forum.makecode.com/u/WoofWoof)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/is-it-possible-to-increase-number-of-colours-in-the-colour-palette/22162/11 "2026-05-15T17:38:52Z")
Yeah, those other separate applications actually do exist! They just have weird names like Unity, Godot, and GameMaker. I haven’t done much research, but I believe they all let you use at _least_ 17 colors! 🙃