The following table shows the pixel formats for off-screen plain surfaces supported by the DirectX® 5 HEL. The Masks column contains the red, green, blue, and alpha masks for each set of pixel format flags and bit depths.
| Pixel format flags | Bit depth | Masks |
| DDPF_RGB | | 1 | R: 0x00000000 |
| DDPF_PALETTEINDEXED1 | G: 0x00000000 | |
| B: 0x00000000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | | 2 | R: 0x00000000 |
| DDPF_PALETTEINDEXED2 | G: 0x00000000 | |
| B: 0x00000000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | | 4 | R: 0x00000000 |
| DDPF_PALETTEINDEXED4 | G: 0x00000000 | |
| B: 0x00000000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | | 8 | R: 0x00000000 |
| DDPF_PALETTEINDEXED8 | G: 0x00000000 | |
| B: 0x00000000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 16 | R: 0x0000F800 |
| G: 0x000007E0 | ||
| B: 0x0000001F | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 16 | R: 0x00007C00 |
| G: 0x000003E0 | ||
| B: 0x0000001F | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 24 | R: 0x00FF0000 |
| G: 0x0000FF00 | ||
| B: 0x000000FF | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 24 | R: 0x000000FF |
| G: 0x0000FF00 | ||
| B: 0x00FF0000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 32 | R: 0x00FF0000 |
| G: 0x0000FF00 | ||
| B: 0x000000FF | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | 32 | R: 0x000000FF |
| G: 0x0000FF00 | ||
| B: 0x00FF0000 | ||
| A: 0x00000000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | | 32 | R: 0x0000F800 |
| DDPF_ZPIXELS | G: 0x000007E0 | |
| B: 0x0000001F | ||
| Z: 0xFFFF0000 | ||
| DDPF_RGB | | 32 | R: 0x00007C00 |
| DDPF_ZPIXELS | G: 0x000003E0 | |
| B: 0x0000001F | ||
| Z: 0xFFFF0000 |
In addition to supporting a wide range of off-screen surface formats, the HEL also supports surfaces intended for use by Direct3D, or other 3-D renderers.