Modern Consumer Video Card

Cheng-Han Du

What Is Video Card?

A separated card to generate and output image to display.Not the integrated graphic processor.

The Plugs for Display Devices

Left: S-Video for TVs, DVD players, game consoles, etc. Output analog signals.

Middle: DVI output for general computer display. Output digital signals.

Right: D-sub (DB-15) output for general computer display. Output analog signals.

Video Card: Early Days

DirectX 5.0 (1997): The key API to situation in present. Released for Win95, 98, or NT, ….

Due to multiprocessing feature of new operating system, graphics-relating application becomes a heavy load on CPU.

In general, video card was used to accelerate 2D and 3D graphics performance.

Watching video in DVD also required a better video chip.

Video Card: Early Days

Some other APIsOpenGL – A cross-platformGlide – A API made by 3Dfx for Voodoo

series cards

Video Card: Early Days

Video cards series based on DirectX:ATi: RagenVIDIA: RIVA, TNT

Video cards series based on Glide:Voodoo series (Voodoo and Voodoo2

at that time)

Video Card: Nowadays

3Dfx bankrupted and was acquired by nVIDIA.

AMD acquired ATi nVIDIA and AMD dominate mainstrea

m of video card.

Video Card: Nowadays

Shader (pixel, vertex, geometry) Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering Depth of field Motion blur ……

Video Card: Nowadays

It sounds like: video cards are used only for entertainment such as games and movies.

Actually, recent development of using graphic card to perform general-purpose calculation is very promising.

Video Card: Nowadays

Many graphics-relating operations are about mathematics such as linear algebra and FFT (Fast Fourier Transform).

Some engineering and physics problem requires huge amount of calculation which is very similar to those in computer graphics.

Video Card: Nowadays

Sometimes, programmers may need a 3D visualization to observe or present something.

Efforts mentioned above may need a supercomputer to handle. However, a video card or more may solve this problem.

Speed may even faster!

Video Card: Future

About a month ago, nVIDIA acquired AGEIA which focused on physical acceleration.

More calculation will be done by video card.

Replace the CPU?