Improved Gaming Experience with Better Graphics

Filed under: Uncategorized - 29 Jan 2010  | Spread the word !

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Far from the days of Pong and Asteroids, games have become far more graphical intense and complicated. In the last twenty years, games have become more visually realistic than the rudimentary Pac-Man graphics. Typically, games in the 80′s and early 90′s were in 2D with simple shapes. In today’s 3D games, graphics are much more detailed and involved which requires a better graphics card.

To go ones step further, a graphics accelerator can allow more efficiency. This will provide better visual quality and improved performance with your new video game. A graphics accelerator frees up your computers memory because it has its own memory built in. This is how it can allow the cool graphics to function seamlessly. If you are not using your computer’s memory for the graphics, it will not slow the movement of the images down.

When you are playing a fast action first person shooter games, you need quick reaction and smooth graphic displays. In many action-packed computer games, the details are not only visually stimulating but are part of the game’s strategy for winning. If you do not see the small critter crawling around the bottom of your screen, your character may be terminated. Accelerators assist with 3D games where the images may need to transform quickly in response to a player’s input, i.e. pulling a gun’s trigger. The truth is most of today’s graphic intensive video games will not even work on a computer that does not have a graphics accelerator. So, if you are a gamer, it is a must! Most high-end computers designed for gaming include a graphics accelerator.

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A History of Graphic Accelerators

Filed under: Uncategorized - 09 Jan 2010  | Spread the word !

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The graphics accelerator is the processing unit in your PC, mobile phone or games system that offloads 3D graphics from the microprocessor.

In the 1970s the early home computers such as the Atari 8-bit used the ANTIC and CTIA chips to provide basic text and graphic modes.

In the 1980s IBM had come up with the professional graphics controller which was one of the first 3D graphics accelerators and was used in the IBM PC, although due to its high price it would be a decade before 3D graphics accelerators would find themselves in mainstream use.

The Commodore Amiga was unique as the first mass produced home computer that incorporated IBMs 8514 2D graphics accelerator and the blitter video hardware.

In the 1990s with the introduction of Windows 2D and 3D graphic accelerators became a neccesaty and manufacturers like S3 graphics started to mass produce 2D and 3D graphic accelerators, S3 Graphics 86C911 single chip 2D accelerator spawned a host of imitators by 1995 all major graphics chip manufacturers produced 2D graphic accelerators.

In the noughties (2000s) came the advent of OpenGL API and DirectX, as processing power increased so did the capabilities of graphic accelerators now each pixel could be processed by a small program that could include image textures and shading, real 3D had arrived.

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