High-Color/true-color modes were standartized by VBE 2.0 in Nov 1994.
So - it looks like 1995 can be the correct answer.
The first example from my memory is Hardline (Cryo Interactive, 1996). By the way, hi-color mode was bugged in this game.

Another trouble is - Windows 3.1/WfW 3.11 can use high/true color modes. So - any Win31 game can be "high-color"/"true color".
As the example - Critical Path (Mechadeus, 1994) has 24-bit version (but the video windows is very small). Other sources claim 1993 as the release date of this game. So - please make a more strict terms - "DOS-only hi-color games" as the example. Or "Fullscreen hi-color games"...

well I guess dos games only then.

Magic Carpet requires it for anaglyph 3D mode, so that's 1994.

Also Doom and Quake both were going to have support for 16-bit color at one point in development. Dropped in both, though Quake still has a lot of leftover 16bit color code in the source.

Hmm... F10 once, IIRC. Maybe the anaglyph mode uses 256 colors with palette editing?
Looks like I need the debug version of DOSBox to find the answer...

why did so many graphical showpiece games like FPSes only use 256 colors if higher modes were available? I believe all the high profile rts games like starcraft, aoe, and total annihilation ran in 256 colors as well.

Creep Clash / Sento accelerated on Matrox Impression Lite/Plus runs in 16bit color (640x400). Released in 1994.

Xenphor wrote:

why did so many graphical showpiece games like FPSes only use 256 colors if higher modes were available? I believe all the high profile rts games like starcraft, aoe, and total annihilation ran in 256 colors as well.

Probably because.....double the memory usage, slower performance across various hardware, extra graphics assets, storage requirements, etc.

Nice thing about the games you listed is I never remember having any performance issues with those games.

leileilol wrote:

Magic Carpet requires it for anaglyph 3D mode, so that's 1994.

Also Doom and Quake both were going to have support for 16-bit color at one point in development. Dropped in both, though Quake still has a lot of leftover 16bit color code in the source.

I guess that's the reason why Doom's assets look much nicer in 16-bit color than 8-bit color, despite the original Doom engine only supporting 8-bit color.

I was thinking of The Labyrinth of Time, but that still looks 256-color.

The JPEG format wasn't standardized until 1992; I don't know how long it took before it became common. I toyed with an old version of POV-Ray sometime around then, which produced TGA files.

Many games stuck with 256 colors to take advantage of palette cycling (indexed color mode), something that wasn't available in higher bit depth modes. This was the case with Windows games long after they had access to higher color modes. It was annoying in Windows because you had to change the video mode and restart windows in many cases.

Activision's Zork Nemesis and Spycraft came with both DOS and Windows 95 executables.

The Windows 95 version requires the Window's colour setting to be set at 16-bit.

So did the DOS versions use 16-bit as well? (But these are 1996's games anyway.)

And isn't this a Marvin or Milliways topic?

I know that Screamer has an option for 8 and 16 bit colour. Terminal velocity I believe has a similar option as well.

Terminal Velocity does not offer any color depth options.

Ok my mistake. Too many games I mucked around with lately...

11th Hour from Nov 1995 ran in 16b color, though it also supported 24b before being updated to the latest beta patch (which only supported 16b). It's the earliest in my collection that supports 16b color, some later others: Screamer Rally, Screamer 2, Ripper, Wing Comander IV.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I know that Screamer has an option for 8 and 16 bit colour. Terminal velocity I believe has a similar option as well.

Terminal Velocity has an option to switch sound output between 8 and 16 bit, maybe that's what you remember.
I suppose the S3D accelerated version does 16 bit video output.

Can any of those 16-bit color games run on a ET4000 or ET4000/W32?
As far as I tested, the 11th hour game flat out refuses it (due to the linear framebuffer being unusable).

Does Magic carpet also use it in normal mode?

No