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Video Cards - Part 1: All you ever wanted to know about video ca

© Michael Christopher Brinton

In the past few years, video cards have become more widely publicized in the computer industry. Previously, video cards were not as important, and therefore not paid as much attention to. As today's software is getting more graphically demanding, video cards have appeared.

Originally, video cards used the CPU to transfer and do the majority of video processing. This did not present much of a problem because the graphics were not very demanding. Recently, as more detailed and complex graphics are used, the CPU was starting to be lagged by video operations. This is where the graphics accelerators have come into play.

Graphic accelerators are video cards with a processing chip onboard. The chip handles some, if not all, of the video tasks, which in turn frees up the CPU to do other tasks. Graphic accelerators have greatly increased the quality and speed of the graphics, because of their dedicated processor.

Types of Video Cards

There are two basic types of video cards. As you can probably guess: two-dimensional and three-dimensional. Up until just recently 2D were the only type of video cards available, and now 3D cards have entered the market. On a typical computer, two-dimensional video cards are used 90% or more of the time. With the new 3D technology, several 2D cards are coming out with added 3D capabilities. (Of course, often the added 3D is usually considered a "bonus" and it is not very good 3D, but enough to give you a nice taste of 3D.) The main drawback right now is that 3D video cards do not run everything in 3D, only software which is supported in 3D. However, more and more software is beginning to support 3D. As I mentioned, video cards have become more publicized than before and because of that, competition has arisen between different manufacturers. This of course is good for us, the consumers because it forces the manufactures to constantly work to develop a better video card at low competitive prices. (Nothing like some good competition =)

Buying

What do you really need? This is the decision, which comes into play when choosing a video card. Should you get a 2D only, a 2D/3D video card, or if you go for the whole deal with a nice 2D and a 3D card. (Currently this will give you the fastest performance because one of the best 3D cards is the 3Dfx which comes on a 3D only card that connects to your 2D. However, the Hercules Stingray 128/3D which combines 2D and a 3Dfx on one card, will be released with in a few weeks. But soon, there will be good 2D/3D combinations coming out which I will talk about in the upcoming weeks.) If you use your computer for business and Internet surfing, you will only need a 2D card. However, you might be interested in some 3D capabilities for fun. Many 2D/3D video card combos are available that give good performance for their price. On the other hand, if you play games a lot, you should consider the jump to a higher-end 3D video card. The games that support 3D right now look really nice, and the technology and software will only get better.

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