VIDEO GRAPHICS ARRAY CARD (VGA CARD)

Video cards are also referred to as video display adapters Video cards are also referred to as video display adapters. A video card is a board that plugs into the computer to give it display capabilities. The display capabilities of the computer, however, depends on both the logical circuitry (provided in the video adapter) and the display monitor. A monochrome monitor, for example, cannot display colors no matter how powerful the video adapter.

VGA compatibility is very simple VGA compatibility is very simple. Any VGA monitor will work when connected to the VGA output on any video card. About the only limitation is that some older low- end video cards may not support a high enough screen resolution for some high-end monitors.

Most video cards get hot enough that they require fans blowing over the heatsink to cool some of the silicon chips. If the chips get too hot then the video card can malfunction or even be permanently damaged. Generally speaking, faster video cards get hotter and require bigger fans and heatsinks to stay cool. Many low-end video cards and some faster ones come with passive cooling which means that there is no fan. That’s very useful if you want to build a quiet machine. You sill need some air circulating through the PC’s case to keep such cards from overheating.

Its not easy to know whether you need to upgrade your case cooling before you’ve installed the new video card. The easiest thing to do is monitor the case temperature and then add an extra fan to your case if you need one. Most current computers have a program which can monitor the temperature inside the case so you can see if it’s gone up very much.

In response to the growing demand for better color display, IBM developed the VGA(short for Video Graphics Array) in 1987, which became a defacto standard for the PC industry. In graphics mode, the resolutions specified by the VGA standard were 640 by 480 (with 16 colors) or 320 by 200 (with 256 colors); the total number of colors were 256,144.

Since the introduction of VGA in 1987, several other standards have been developed that offer greater resolution and more color. The standard that has emerged as the one dominant standard in the industry is SVGA, which is short for Super Video Graphics Array.

There are several different levels of SVGA, each offering a different resolution: 800 by 600 pixels 1024 by 768 pixels 1280 by 1024 pixels 1600 by 1200 pixels

Resolution -refers to the sharpness and clarity of the images displayed on the monitor

It is the number of dots (pixels) on the screen, which is a function of the number of pixels displayed in one horizontal line multiplied by the number of pixels displayed in one vertical line.

more pixels on the screen = better resolution

How does resolution relate to the palette?

Each resolution has a corresponding palette of colors that can be displayed.

The higher the resolution, the lower the number of colors that can be displayed simultaneously.

AGP stands for Accelerated Graphics Port AGP stands for Accelerated Graphics Port. AGP video cards are capable of a higher data transfer rate than PCI video cards. Video cards, like the one shown, simply plug into an AGP slot and connect a monitor or other video display device to a computer. The "DVI Out" connector shown in picture above connects to a digital video display. DVI stands for Digital Video Interface. Video cards with a TV output connection are capable of displaying a computer's video on a television. Video cards with a TV input connection are able of displaying a television's video on a computer.

PCI Express is a more recent technology that is slowly replacing AGP PCI Express is a more recent technology that is slowly replacing AGP. PCI Express x16 slots can transfer data at 4GBs per second, which is about double that of an AGP 8x slot. PCI Express slots come in PCIe x1, PCIe x2, PCIe x4, PCIe x8, and PCIe x16. PCIe x16 slots are used for video cards.