Choosing and Setting a Best-Match Pixel Format

This topic explains the procedure for matching a device context to a pixel format.

To obtain a device context's best match to a pixel format

1. Specify the desired pixel format in a PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR structure.

2. Call ChoosePixelFormat.

   The ChoosePixelFormat function returns a pixel format index, which you can then pass to SetPixelFormat to set the best pixel format match as the device context's current pixel format.

The following code sample shows how to carry out the above steps.

PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd = { 
    sizeof(PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR),    // size of this pfd  
    1,                                // version number  
    PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW |              // support window  
    PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL |              // support OpenGL  
    PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER,                 // double buffered  
    PFD_TYPE_RGBA,                    // RGBA type  
    24,                               // 24-bit color depth  
    0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,                 // color bits ignored  
    0,                                // no alpha buffer  
    0,                                // shift bit ignored  
    0,                                // no accumulation buffer  
    0, 0, 0, 0,                       // accum bits ignored  
    32,                               // 32-bit z-buffer      
    0,                                // no stencil buffer  
    0,                                // no auxiliary buffer  
    PFD_MAIN_PLANE,                   // main layer  
    0,                                // reserved  
    0, 0, 0                           // layer masks ignored  
}; 
HDC  hdc; 
int  iPixelFormat; 
 
// get the device context's best, available pixel format match  
iPixelFormat = ChoosePixelFormat(hdc, &pfd); 
 
// make that match the device context's current pixel format  
SetPixelFormat(hdc, iPixelFormat, &pfd);