Consider a N-bit plane frame buffer with W-bit wide lookup table with W > N.…

Answer: There are 2^N intensity levels available at a time.

Explanation:

• The frame buffer is N-bit, so each pixel stores an N-bit index. That index can take 2^N distinct values, which determines how many different palette entries can be referenced simultaneously.

• The lookup table is W bits wide, meaning each palette entry is represented with W bits (giving each entry up to 2^W possible intensity values). However, the number of entries that can be used at once is limited by the number of indices in the frame buffer (2^N).

• Therefore, even if W > N, only 2^N intensity levels can be displayed simultaneously; the wider table only affects the resolution/precision of those entries, not their count.

Example: If N = 3 and W = 8, the frame buffer can reference 2^3 = 8 palette entries at once. Each palette entry is 8 bits wide (0–255), but only 8 of those values are used simultaneously.