Archive for June, 2012
Graphic Cards- Brilliant performance
Graphics Card- Flying high
Particularly for people who play 3D games, the graphics card is a vital performance component of the computer. A graphics card works by calculating how images appear, particularly 3D images, and renders them to the screen. 3D images and video images take a lot of processing capacity, and many graphics processors are complex, require fans to cool them and need direct power supply. The graphics card consists of a graphics processor, a memory chip for graphics operations, and a RAMDAC for display output. It may also include video capture, TV output and SLI and other functions. Generally speaking, there are two types of graphics: 2D and 3D. Two-dimensional graphics are familiar to everyone. Windows, word processing, and this Web page are all rendered in 2D. Everything has its place on the screen. Three-dimensional graphics are a bit more complicated, as everything has a place in a three-dimensional space, and the graphics card is given the task of figuring out just what is seen at all. It also has to figure out which side of an object you see, whether part or all of it is hidden behind another object, or how big it should appear given its size and distance.
To be precise, the users fall into the below mentioned categories:
E-mail and Web Surfing
People who have very basic needs such as productivity tasks (e-mail and spreadsheets), place moderate demands on the graphics. Therefore, a good integrated-graphics solution will serve quite well.
The Casual Gamer
People who do not spent a lot of time playing games, and if they do, those that are played generally aren’t the ones that place a lot of demand on performance with the monitor not bigger than 21 inches. To make things clearer, a bigger monitor usually means higher resolution, which translates into more pixels for the graphics card to manage. Therefore, midrange card would suffice and get the job done.
The Gamer
People interested in speed above all else, although as video games have become more and more complex in recent years, memory is quickly catching up.
3D Animation, CAD/CAM and video production
People who are interested in the resolution and memory capabilities than speed. As they are often working with large, complex files, they can let the video speed of their card slip a little bit in an exchange for more memory capability. Therefore, a moderate- to high-power consumer graphics card can do quite well. However, for more serious work we might need the ATI FireGL line or the Nvidia Quadro.
In short, depending upon the usage, every individual should decide on the Graphics Card needed and to clarify more apart from being convenient, mention is few guidelines.
Memory
We need a video card that has a decent amount of memory to play games at high-resolution with quality graphics settings enabled. Though, common perception of every buyer is same who look at memory size as one of the main comparison points between different cards. The underpowered card might have some of the right numbers on the spec sheet, but its poor performance will show once the gaming starts.
GPU (Graphics Processing Units)
Memory is important, but the real heart of the video card is the graphics processing unit. GPU or the little chip is responsible for all of the video card’s 3D performance, therefore, while browsing through video card names, it becomes utmost important to look for is the GPU type. Today’s best GPUs come from Nvidia and ATI, but it’s not enough just to buy a video card with a "Nvidia GeForce" or "ATI Radeon" GPU. We also have to pay attention to the model number since Nvidia and ATI label all their cards from entry-level cards to the high-end monsters with the same GeForce and Radeon brand names. Higher model numbers are better, but we should also pay attention to additional modifiers at the end, such as GT, GS, GTX, XT, and XTX.
Windows Vista and Direct X- DirectX
Is an API (Application Programming Interface) that allows programmers to access system resources more easily, and with less overhead i.e. additional processing power and memory. For DirectX to work, there also has to be appropriate hardware that can respond to commands from the API. So every time a new version of DirectX comes out, there needs to be new hardware to take advantage of it. With the introduction of a new version of DirectX, version 10, which only exists on Vista, the current generation of video cards is being designed to take advantage of DirectX 10.
Connectivity
For connecting to the computer, there are three options out there oPCI (Old, slower) oAGP (Current, fast) oPCI-Express (New, fastest)
We really won’t have much of an option here as our choices will be limited by the connection slot available on our PC. But for people for whom speed is the main interest, it’s nice to see the progression of the technology, as they can now know which to choose. And for connecting from our card (the back of our computer) to our monitor, we will almost certainly be using a DVI output, as that’s what is used by modern LCD monitors. Older CRT monitors will connect with a VGA cable, and we will need an adapter to connect our old monitor to our new video card. Such an adapter is usually included along with either our monitor or our video card.
Connectivity is where you’ll have the least amount of options. Beyond that, there are as many video cards out there as there are colors in the rainbow. It’s not always about which one is best, but more so about which one is best for you. Graphics cards are usually priced for performance. In other words, the more we spend on a card, the better our performance will be.
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