Key Video Card Terms
The world of video cards is a strange and fascinating one, and one that is rife with some sometimes confusing terminology. You don’t need to know all of the video card lingo to find the right video card and appreciate its use, but it helps. It also may be interesting to satisfy your curiosity. Here then, are some video card terms you’ve probably heard before and what they mean.
Video Card Terms – Frame Rate
The way any animation works is through a quick succession of images, each altered slightly from the last, so that the result is the smooth appearance of motion. The more images you get in a shorter time, the smoother that appearance. Your video card frame rate is a reflection of this. The higher the frame rate, the smoother the motion.
Video Card Terms- 3D Accelerator
You may have heard of video cards with respect to their 3D accelerators. This is just a fancy way of saying your video card is smart. Drawing 3D images takes a lot of computing power, and a 3D accelerator allows your video card itself to take on the bulk of this computing burden, rather than depending on your CPU.
Video Card Terms – Chipset
The chipset is the nerve center of your video card, sort of like the nucleus of a cell. It basically runs things. Your motherboard has a chipset too, which controls its logic functions, but remember, today’s video cards are smart, so they need their own, powerful chipsets to operate.
Video Card Terms –Frame Buffer
It used to be that the computer would figure out what image needed to be displayed and then the video card would read the computer data and display it. This is not only a slow process, but today’s computers may not even have the resources to hold all the image information that modern graphics require. The frame buffer on the video card allows the card to store the image information and read it directly, saving time and computer memory.
These are far from the only terms that are important related to video cards, but they are some useful terms to get you started talking about video cards. Now, the next time you go into your computer supply store looking at video cards, and the employee starts rattling off information about chipsets and frame rates, you’ll know just what he or she is referring to.
