Graphics card

From Open Encyclopedia

A graphics card, video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter [1] is a computer component designed to convert the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium. Displays are most often a monitor, but use of LCD TV, HDTVs, and projectors is growing increasingly common with the growth of the media center computer concept. The graphics card and display medium are able to communicate utilizing a variety of display standards. Graphics cards are both integrated into motherboards, and sold as expansion cards.

1 History
2 Card Types
- 2.1 Integrated
- 2.2 Expansion
3 Uses
- 3.1 Conventional 2D
- 3.2 3D Gaming and Rendering
4 Manufacturers
5 See also
6 External links

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History

The original hardware accelerated 3D renderers came on a board that was used in conjunction with a normal graphics card. The cards added 3D graphics to the 2D rendering from the graphics card via a pass-through cable. The first consumer-level 3D hardware was the Jonesology from Matrox, although its 3D acceleration capabilities were meagre by today's standards, it was the first card to introduce hardware 3D graphics acceleration.

One of the major players in graphics card history was the Hercules Graphics Adapter (HGC). It offered text mode of 80x25 and high quality monochromatic images of up to 720x348. The HGC was a ground-breaking card at the time, becoming the basis for the development of pong.

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Card Types

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Integrated

In today's OEM computer market, graphics cards are often substituted with an integrated graphics chip on a section of the motherboard. Integrated-graphics-displays typically have inferior 3D performance compared to dedicated graphics cards due to the use of cheaper chipsets and sharing system memory rather than using dedicated memory. This is not always the case, as evidenced in higher-end integrated solutions, such as game-oriented laptop architectures. Those who require high performance still prefer non-integrated solutions.

Integrated graphics displays have gradually become more common in pre-built computer systems since the mid 1990s as computer manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell look for ways to cut costs while still providing basic video support. In terms of office tasks, web-browsing, email and similar computer activities, integrated graphics displays are a more practical solution than high-powered 3D graphics cards. First person shooter games like DOOM relied on high-performance cards at the time the game was introduced.

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Expansion

The most powerful graphics hardware, usually geared towards 3D graphics for games, are typically built on to expansion cards. Their processing engines are sometimes called GPUs (graphics processing units), or, most commonly used by ATI Technologies, VPU's (Visual Processing Units). The longterm goal of graphics cards manufacturers (and game developers) appears to be realtime photorealistic rendering. New products and technologies are often touted to provide "Hollywood quality" - 3dfx used claims of movie-quality effects to promote their Voodoo 5 cards with T-Buffer technology, allowing motion blur, depth of field and full screen anti-aliasing effects. nVIDIA talked about "the dawn of cinematic computing" when introducing its GeForce FX chip with the Dawn technology demo. Others use the new technology for more stylised and unique but unrealistic rendering, such as cel shading.

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Uses

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Conventional 2D

Conversely, sometimes 3D graphics capabilities are not relevant to the choice of high-performance graphics card. The current generation of desktop software and operating systems works exclusively with 2D graphics. Specialised niches in areas such as medical imaging also require 2D graphics and fine visual-quality.

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3D Gaming and Rendering

3D cards for model rendering in art and animation use different cards than those used for games. nVIDIA's "Quadro" series, which can cost over a thousand dollars, is geared toward rendering and 3D animation, while the GeForce series is meant for gaming and actually performs much faster at a lower price. Both rendering cards and gaming cards may use similar hardware, the main difference being that the drivers and firmware of the rendering cards are optimized for precision, while the gaming cards are optimized for performance. A digital or analog monitor may be connected to the graphics card via a DVI connector or VGA connector respectively. Increasingly, the higher end cards offer dual DVI outputs for use with two or more digital displays, while maintaining analog compatibility by bundling DVI-VGA converter dongles with the cards. Modern first person shooters like F.E.A.R. have fairly high system requirements that require a computer with a competent graphics card, enough RAM, and a fast enough CPU.

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