Texture color depth is wrong

[Darke]

I'm loading a 32 bit color texture with
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA8, m_width, m_height, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, ii->m_pixBits);
but there is a huge degradation. The texture appears to only be 8 bit color when rendered. The pixelformatdescriptor is set for 32 bits per pixel and my desktop is in 32 bit color when I begin the application in windowed mode.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be degrading the color and how I can fix it?

[Andrew Adinetz]

What do you mean by saying "it appears to only be 8 bit color"? Does that mean that it appears that 8 bits is used for entire color value, or per color component? I guess, however, that it's for entire color value if you ask it...

As most graphics cards support 8-bit textures, it is worth trying to search for a problem with ii->m_pixBits. Does it contain correct data?
By the way, what graphics hardware are you using?