32/16-bit to 8-bit

[perer]

He I was thinking if we make a wrapper that converts 16/32-bit textures to 8-bit compressed or similar textures. Will it cause a great performance gain. Note that this can be for Voodoo1 to Voodoo5.
Can somebody tell me of this is something good or something awful.

[perer]

Well I read what Koolsmoky sad about the DXTC for voodoo3.
And he sad that pre-load textures can be done, Thats what I thought to. But what to do with the ones that are asked during gameplay?
You can't let the CPU do everything on the fly, or it has to have a killer speed. Which I don't have unfortunately only a duron 1000, and a xp2200+ where the voodoo2 is not installed because of the 3 year warrenty . But I am thinking of buying a applebred, and hope I get a good stepping. But further on the textures, changing textures during gameplay CAN BE DONE. We can use 8-bit textures compressed, or 8-bit palletized. But Koolsmoky am I wrong here ( please correct my if I am wrong ). Colours are values in C, that is generally what a texture is, a bunch of number, (can I alter them with a Hex-editor).
Wel If we first count the numbers on a 16-bit texture, then we have the amount of colours. The colours/numbers that a closely together will be joined to one colour. So we will have less colours know. Then we change the image to a 8-bit one with a pallet. So we can use more colours. A little note about  about the numbers thing, If the numbers of colours after joining some are still not 256, then some other colours will be joined. I hope this can be a fast way to change the textures.