diff --git a/t/core_surface.t b/t/core_surface.t
index 897536b6..03efa859 100644
--- a/t/core_surface.t
+++ b/t/core_surface.t
@@ -51,7 +51,10 @@ is( $image->h, 32, 'image has height' );
 
 my $pixel_format = $image->format;
 isa_ok( $pixel_format, 'SDL::PixelFormat' );
-is( $pixel_format->BitsPerPixel,  8,   ' BitsPerPixel' );
+# the bitmap has a bitdepth of 4
+# SDL_classic could not allocate less than full bytes per pixel
+# sdl12-compat returns the actual bit depth of the image here
+is( $pixel_format->BitsPerPixel,  4,   ' BitsPerPixel' );
 is( $pixel_format->BytesPerPixel, 1,   ' BytesPerPixel' );
 is( $pixel_format->Rloss,         8,   ' Rloss' );
 is( $pixel_format->Gloss,         8,   ' Gloss' );