Display device and apparatus and method of driving same

A driving apparatus driving method of a flat panel (e.g., LCD) display device. The driving apparatus of the display device includes: a data processor that selects a (at least) two of output gray levels (output image data ) based on an input gray level (of received image data) and outputs the two output grays for each pixel to a data driver that selects two gray (reference) voltages corresponding to the output image data output from the data processor and applies the gray (reference) voltages to the pixels as data voltages. The first output gray level may be less than the second output gray level, and less than the input gray level. The first and second output gray level (and thus the first and second output grays) applied to the pixel as data voltages are optically averaged at the pixel, to have the same (average) transmittance as the original input gray level. A gray voltage generator generates and outputs a plurality of gray (reference) voltages for selection by the data driver. At least one of the plurality of gray (reference) voltages may have a value less than a liquid crystal threshold voltage.