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BMP vs PCX

BMP vs PCX

A detailed comparison of BMP Image and PCX Image — file size, quality, compatibility, and which format to choose for your workflow.

Convert BMP → PCX Convert PCX → BMP
BMP

BMP Image

Raster & Vector Images

BMP is an uncompressed raster image format native to Windows. Files are large but preserve exact pixel data with no compression artifacts. Rarely used on the web due to file size.

About BMP files
PCX

PCX Image

Raster & Vector Images

PCX (PiCture eXchange) is a legacy raster image format created by ZSoft for their PC Paintbrush program. It was one of the first widely supported image formats on IBM PC compatibles and uses simple run-length encoding compression.

About PCX files

Strengths Comparison

BMP Strengths

  • Dead-simple format — trivially easy to read and write.
  • Lossless and uncompressed — perfect bit-exact pixel storage.
  • Universally supported in Windows applications since 1985.
  • Supports 1, 4, 8, 16, 24, and 32-bit color depths.

PCX Strengths

  • Simple format — easy to parse in any language.
  • RLE compression keeps flat-color images compact.
  • Historic archive format for 1985-1995 PC art.
  • Stable since 1985 with no breaking changes.

Limitations

BMP Limitations

  • Enormous file sizes — no meaningful compression in typical use.
  • Not a web format — browsers support it but nobody serves BMPs over HTTP.
  • No metadata support (no EXIF, no ICC profile in practice).
  • Multiple header versions mean "a BMP" is ambiguous — parsers must handle several variants.

PCX Limitations

  • Legacy — no new content created as PCX in 2026.
  • Inefficient for photographs (RLE is wrong algorithm).
  • Limited to 24-bit color depth.
  • Web browsers do not display PCX.

Technical Specifications

Specification BMP PCX
MIME type image/bmp image/x-pcx
Extensions .bmp, .dib —
Compression None (typical); RLE 4/8 bit (rare) Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Color depths 1, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32 bits per pixel —
Byte order Little-endian —
Extension — .pcx
Header — 128 bytes fixed
Creator — ZSoft Corporation (1985)

Typical File Sizes

BMP

  • Small icon (32×32) 4 KB
  • Screenshot (1920×1080) ~6 MB
  • 4K image (3840×2160) ~25 MB
  • Scanned A4 at 300 dpi ~25 MB

PCX

  • Simple clipart 2-40 KB
  • VGA-era screenshot (320×200) 30-80 KB
  • Scanned page 200 KB - 2 MB

Ready to convert?

Convert between BMP and PCX online, free, and without installing anything. Encrypted upload, automatic deletion after 2 hours.

Convert BMP to PCX Convert PCX to BMP

Frequently Asked Questions

BMP (Bitmap) is a raster image format developed by Microsoft for Windows. It stores images with no compression by default, resulting in large file sizes but pixel-perfect quality. It has been part of Windows since version 1.0.

PCX (PCX Image) is an image format used to store raster graphics — a two-dimensional grid of pixels describing a picture. It is part of the raster & vector images family and designed around a specific trade-off between file size, visual fidelity, and feature support (transparency, colour depth, compression type). Photographers, web designers, and content creators choose PCX when its particular strengths match the publishing target.

BMP files open in Windows Paint, Photos, macOS Preview, GIMP, Photoshop, and virtually any image viewer. All Windows applications support BMP natively.

Most desktop photo viewers (Windows Photos, macOS Preview, GIMP, Photoshop, Affinity Photo) open PCX natively. On mobile, iOS Photos and Google Photos display PCX in the gallery when supported by the OS. If the format is rare or new, convert to JPG or PNG first — both are universally readable — using our PCX to JPG or PCX to PNG converter.

PNG is better than BMP in almost every scenario since it provides lossless compression (smaller files), transparency support, and wider cross-platform use. BMP is mainly relevant for legacy Windows applications.

Upload the PCX to KaijuConverter and pick a target format (JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, SVG, PDF). The conversion runs in the browser via ImageMagick and returns a download in seconds. No account or installation required; both input and output delete automatically within two hours.