The main purpose of your graphic card is to manage the data from images and videos displayed by your monitor screen.
ATI Readeon Graphic Card
I like to imagine the card as a mini-motherboard focused at graphics only. Like a motherboard it has memories, a CPU, a fan or a cooling system and connectors to plug other devices.
In comparison with the integrated graphic controller chip on a motherboard, cards are installed in accelerated graphic buses like the PCIexpress and Cards commonly come with much more features than an integrated chip.
Some cards even come with a TV tuner to plug your home TV. Watching TV at your monitor screen becomes possible with such connectors, even video capture becomes possible with the right connector.
Should you buy a card or use the integrated controller chip that comes with your motherboard?
It all depends of your needs. Today's motherboards have an integrated graphic chip powerful enough to satisfy requirements for an everyday use. But if you are working with 3D graphics or 3D animations or playing games, a card will be better for meeting your acceleration requirements.
Video Card GPU
Like motherboards, today's cards have their own processor called Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). 3D graphics rendering need floating point calculations and GPUs are just what it need for the job.It is the incorporated microchips with their mathematical operations that render possible graphics rendering and it is the efficiency of the microchips that will determine the graphic acceleration.
The core clock on a GPU is around 600 MHz and surely higher on the newest cards.
Video RAM
Video RAM (VRAM) is at the graphic card as RAM is at the motherboard. If cards would not have such video RAM, the system would use the motherboard RAM to do the dirty works.The main feature of the video RAM is the capacity of dual-porting. It can simultaneously be written and read. It gives the advantage of calculating and send screen images to the monitor and start reading new images at the same time without bumping.
Here the RAM standards used for cards from the oldest to the newest.
- DDR standard, Double Data Rate
- DDR2 standard, Double Data Rate 2
- GDR3 standard, Graphics Double Data Rate 3
- GDR4 standard, Graphics Double Data Rate 4
SVideo, SVGA and DVI Connector
Graphic Card Connectors
The Digital Visual Interface (DVI), is used for digital devices like a projector. As LCD monitors are digital display units, the new LCD monitors come with the DVI connector. I suggest using the DVI standard because it is design to enhance digital display.
Separate Video (SVideo), is the round connector used to connect your TV, game console, DVD player etc.
Video Card Technologies
Modern cards are designed with a ton of features to help accelerate and sharpen 3D graphics. I am giving only a brief introduction because I want to keep the more sophisticated details for a future page about this topic.So here it is for the most important features to give you an idea about what modern cards are able to do in a 3D environment.
Anti-Aliasing
Anti-aliasing (AA), makes your graphics look smoother. Without the AA graphics look like they have been made from squares. Try to make a perfect circle with squares. I doubt you can.Texture Filtering
Texture filtering is a way to blend pixel textures together by slicing them. In a 3D environment, object textures look smoother, more realistic with texture filtering. Otherwise when more and more textures appear, it looks somewhat blurry.Shader Model
Shader is the one I prefer. The shader make 3D effects in such ways that sometime I almost believe it is real. Imagine a lake with a castle close by, the castle reflection in the water is the kind of visual effect the shader technology can do. And this is only a tinny part of what shader can do in a 3D environment.
[I hope you appreciated the graphic card guide
and I invite you to take a look at the other guides.]
and I invite you to take a look at the other guides.]
- How to install a video card step by step. New!!!