nVidia

nVidia was founded in 1993 by two Sun Microsystems engineers along with microprocessor designer Jen-Hsun Huang. As their success in the computer graphics industry grew, they began to absorb many smaller graphics card companies, until ATI was practically the only competitor left. In addition to graphics processors, nVidia produces PC chipsets, digital media playing software and processors for wireless communication. nVidia cards are used in popular video game consoles Xbox and PlayStation3. Unlike ATI, which sells its graphics cards directly to consumers, nVidia graphics boards are sold to other manufacturers who produce nVidia video cards.

When it comes to nVidia graphics cards, the make to know is GeForce for gaming. If you need your best video output for games and you’re working with nVidia, you want a GeForce card. If design or digital content creation is your thing, you may need a Quadro card.

ATI

ATI Technologies, which began as Array Technologies Incorporated, has been pioneering graphics cards since 1985. They are particularly renowned for their groundbreaking work in 3D accelerator technology. In 2006, ATI was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and renamed AMD Graphics Product Group. However, due to brand recognition, the video cards still retain the name ATI. ATI’s counterpart to the nVidia GeForce is the Radeon video card.

nVidia vs. ATI

So which is better? Ask ten computer graphics experts and you will get ten different answers. On some level, this is a matter of personal preference. However, many experts agree that nVidia cards tend to have more memory, while ATI cards tend to be faster, and this usually means that nVidia cards are preferable for gaming while ATI cards are better for other video functions. That being said, many ATI Radeon cards are still ideal for gaming purposes, and many people feel that ATI cards provide a better cost-to-value ratio. If you get a video card with a sufficient GPU and enough memory for your needs, you very likely will not even notice a difference between an ATI Radeon card and an nVIdia GeForce card.

Also, ATI cards are red and nVidia cards are green.

PCI

It’s important to note that those slots in your computer are not necessarily just for graphics cards. The PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect and it can be used for modems, network cards, sound cards, just about any peripheral hardware device you want to add to your computer. In fact, in modern computers, PCI slots are not even used for video. The bandwidth requirements for modern video have become so great that conventional PCI slots cannot support most modern video cards. However, you can still find PCI video cards if PCI slots are all you have.

AGP

AGP, or Advanced Graphics Port, was the next evolution in video card/video card bus technology. It was created in response to a need for greater bandwidth for quality graphics. The way it gets this is by providing a dedicated resource to the video card, as opposed to the PCI slot which would share bandwidth with other applications. Also, the AGP has additional data buses to keep data flowing. Also, the AGP is able to use the Graphics Address Remapping Table (GART) to read textures directly, rather than having to copy it onto the card’s framebuffer from the system’s RAM and then reading it from there, as PCI video cards had to do. You can only use an AGP card if your computer has an AGP slot. If not, you are stuck with PCI (in today’s computers you will be using PCI express, see below). In addition, your computer probably doesn’t have more than one AGP slot, so if you want to use two video cards, you will need to use something other than AGP for one.

PCI Express

PCI Express, or PCI-E or PCIe, is the current standard in video card bus technology. New computers will use PCIe slots exclusively for graphics cards, although you can still find and use PCI and AGP video cards for your computer if your computer supports them. They are based on a point-to-point serial concept rather than a parallel bus concept, which allows for more efficient data streaming. PCIe slots are defined as x1, x2, x4, x8, x16 and x32. These represent the number of lanes through which data can stream. You will most likely be looking for x16, which is the most common large size for the typical user.

PCMCIA Card History

PCMCIA is short for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. Before its dissolution in 2009, the company was an industry standard for PC  Card production and sales. They manufactured the sound cards for audio programs used in computers, particularly laptops. The cards are small,  similar to the size of a credit card and easily fit into the side of a laptop. The PCMCIA was founded in 1989 to create reliable and interchangeable memory cards for computers of all kinds and allow consumers to purchase the cards without fear of getting the wrong one. These cards have multiple ports in order to connect to speakers or amplifiers in various audio devices.

Types of PCMCIA Cards

There are several kinds of PCMCIA sound cards available to consumers. They are the 2.1 PCMCIA, the 5.1 PCMCIA and the 7.1 PCMCIA sound cards. The 2.1 PCMCIA sound card sustains the maximum capacity of two speakers as well as a two way center speaker and is generally used for music or audio purposes. The 5.1 PCMCIA sound card come equipped with the capacity to withstand the power of four two-way speakers, one two-way center speaker as well as one subwoofer. The 5.1 sound cards are generally used when operating mid-range entertainment systems. The 7.1 PCMCIA sound card is larger and able to withstand the capacity of six two-way speakers, one two-way center speaker as well as one subwoofer. The 7.1 PCMCIA sound cards are used in an extremely professional atmosphere and are designed for usage in high-end gaming systems as well as home entertainment cinemas.

The prices for PCMCIA cards range from $24.99 and up. You may purchase sound video cards on sites that support computer and technology merchandise.

Upgrading from VGA to DVI Video Cards Is a Must

Most DVI cards can connect to traditional VGA monitors with nothing more than the use of an adapter. Almost all flat screen monitors currently on the market offer some sort of DVI input, since VGA is considered insufficient for higher resolutions.

Benefits of DVI

DVI offers a significant advantage in the number of frames per second, or FPS, over VGA. It can also display more colors with more clarity, although in general a good VGA card can display with a resolution so high that it borders on the limit that the human eye can perceive. DVI cards have become extremely affordable, and in fact, traditional VGA cards are becoming increasingly difficult to find. VGA has largely been reassigned to “build-in” visual outputs for low-end motherboards that are designed to be inexpensive. Most computers now offer DVI as the standard, if not the only, manner of providing visual output. DVI is generally accepted as the best format for mid-range graphics cards, video cards and monitors, as it offers an excellent compromise between price and performance.

Some high-end cards also offer DVI output as an option, making them backwards compatible with mid-range and low-end flat screen monitors.

A graphics card’s job is complicated, but its basic principle is easy to understand. If a computer were a company, the video card is the art department. When people in the company want a piece of artwork, they send a request to the art department. The art department then creates the image and puts it on paper. A graphics card works the same way. The computer sends information about the image to the graphics card. The graphics card decides how to use the pixels on the screen to create the image and then sends that information to the monitor through a cable. ­

The very first personal computer video card was released with the first IBM PC in 1981. This MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter) could only work in text mode; it had a 4KB video memory and just one color. In 1987, Video Graphics Array (VGA) was introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers.  Some corporations worked with that video card, improving its resolution and the number of colors it used and later was developed into the SVGA (Super VGA) standard, which reached 2 MB of video memory and a 256 color mode.

Creating an image out of binary data is a demanding process. To make a 3-D image, the graphics card first creates a wire frame out of straight lines. Then, it fills in the remaining pixels. It also adds lighting, texture and color. For fast-paced games, the computer has to go through this process about sixty times per second. Without a graphics card to perform the necessary calculations, the workload would be too much for the computer to handle.

The graphics card accomplishes this task using four main components: a motherboard connection for data and power, a processor to decide what to do with each pixel on the screen, Memory to hold information about each pixel and to temporarily store completed pictures and a monitor connection so you can see the final result

­ Graphics cards have come a long way since IBM introduced the first one in 1981. Called a Monochrome Display Adapter, that card provided text-only displays of green or white text on a black screen. Now, the minimum standard for new video cards is Video Graphics Array (VGA), which allows 256 colors. But with high-performance standards like Quantum Extended Graphics Array (QXGA), today’s video cards can display millions of colors at resolutions of up to 2040 x 1536 pixels.

The first computer graphics, as difficult as this may now be to visualize, were created without the use of video cards.  This was back in the late 40s and early 50s when a lot of the groundbreaking work in computer technology was happening in the US military.  The Navy’s first computer flight simulator, known to posterity as Whirlwind 1, no doubt represented the very zenith of high technology in the first half of the twentieth century.  Imagine what its inventors would think of today’s EVGA technology or ARG adapters.

The first actual video cards, developed in the early 1980s, could, believe it or not, only function in text mode, with 4 kilobytes of memory, and could process one color only.  These cards were tasked with the rather drab responsibility of producing the text-based picture on the monitor screen.  But the development of graphical operating systems made it increasingly difficult for the graphic load to be handled inside the main processor. The answer was to “farm” this workload out to a more powerful graphics card.  These were no doubt, a far cry from today’s video cards, with their VRAMs, RAMDACs etc.  But at the time they were considered groundbreaking examples of cutting edge technology.

And yet the day will come when we look back on today’s shiny new computers with something like condescension.  “Aw, remember the old ARG adapters?” Someone may one day ask.  “Can you believe they got by in the old days with only 16.7 million colors?”

Indeed the trend nowadays is for video cards to exceed the confines of their original purpose, not just their original design.  The gaming industry has been commonly producing both 2- dimensional and 3- dimensional cards for years.  In fact, in the 1990s it was almost impossible for video card manufacturers to keep up with design. The average product life of a video card was about 6 months.  In other words, the technology began to grow almost exponentially.  Products were outdated almost as soon as they hit the showroom floor.  To put this another way, it would be like going from a horse, to a Model T, to a rocket ship in half a year.

It’s hard to imagine where this all is going to end.  But rest assured, one day—perhaps even in the next six months—we’ll be sitting around laughing at the GPUs of today, thinking: how quaint and primitive they once were.

For those of you who didn’t grow up along with the gaming revolution, here is a primer on the top 10 most revolutionary milestones in computer game design. Read it and learn. Your geeky elders will respect you for it.

The First War Games

The history of computer games reaches back to 1947, when two pioneering scientists made the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device. This crude game “system” allowed the player to fire missiles at targets. Today’s players, however, would hardly recognize it as a computer game.

Tennis for Two

Tennis for Two, which was made in 1958, was an analog game that used an oscilloscope that allowed players to compete with each other in a simple version of tennis. Thanks to the oscilloscope, it looked more like a device on a submarine than a computer game.

Granular Video Cards

The Commodore 64 was one of the first computer systems to include a dedicated video card. This system, however, didn’t have a granular card. The introduction of granular video cards dramatically improved the visual aspects of games. Even when granular video cards were introduced, they still didn’t have anything close to the power that consumers expect today. In fact, the VGA had a 640X480 resolution, which doesn’t cut it by today’s standards when processing intense graphics. Still, the granular video cards were an important step forward.

The AGP Port

This was one of the most revolutionary milestones in computer gaming history. AGP finally gave graphics cards their own dedicated ports. This meant higher bandwidths and faster processing.

Multiple Slots for Video Cards

There was a momentary lull in the world of home gaming systems when many consumers found that they could rely on their PCs to play more intense games. This led to the development of computers that included slots for multiple video cards. Now computers could process more information at faster speeds.

Online Gaming

Basic online games have existed for nearly as long as the internet (check out the movie WarGames), but the technology didn’t really let players interact with effective avatars until games like World of Warcraft and Everquest offered an exciting way for individual players to meet each other online and play intense games even when they were separated by hundreds or thousands of miles.

DOOM

DOOM revolutionized the way that people played computer games in the early 1990s by popularizing the first-person shooter genre. This game was also important because it used intense 3-D graphics and allowed multiple players to participate through networked computers.

Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike took multi-player games to a whole new level. This game’s developers used advanced graphics to create one of the most realistic game worlds ever created in the 1990s. CS quickly became a huge hit, and players went so far as to form professional leagues, something that video game players would have thought impossible in the 80s and early 90s.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Most serious gamers recognize Neverwinter Nights as the first MMORPG. It was introduced by AOL in 1991, but there were plenty of advances on the horizon. Today, MMORPGs are one of the most popular and lucrative types of computer games because they allow players to interact with other people from all over the world and explore fictional lands that offer amazing detail.

What Are Computer Video Cards?

Computer video cards are cards that are connected to your computer motherboards that allow the display of advanced graphic images, everything from basic icons to 3D scenes. Without a video card, your computer would only be slightly more useful than an old school typewriter.

History of Computer Video Cards

It all started back in 1981, when IBM released their first PC, with a video card integrated. This MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter) only featured text and a single color. It allowed users to operate the PC, but provided little else in the way of graphic capability.

The next big step in computer video card development was what is called the VGA, or Video Graphics Array, back in 1987. This card significantly expanded the amount of color, memory and resolution available for PC computer graphics. This included 256 KB of video RAM, 16 color and 256 color modes, and up to 800 horizontal pixels and 600 lines.

1998 brought even more video card advancement, including video cards that had 3D functionality. One of the most significant of the early 3D video card developments was the Voodoo graphics chip.  The company known as NVIDIA used this technology to create video cards that had extremely powerful graphics capabilities. The quality of these cards was so great that they tested the capabilities of most computers, until Intel designed what is known as the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) to allow the computer’s microprocessor to work more effectively with the video card.

Computer Video Cards Today

Today, most of the video cards used today are developed by NVIDIA with their GeForce line or ATI with their Radeon line.  These video cards have graphic capabilities that put early computer graphics to shame, and allow for designs and viewing experience that are beyond anything that early computer pioneers could even dream of. What video cards may make possible for the future can only be a matter of speculation, but if the development of video cards up until now is any indication, whatever comes next is sure to be mind-blowing.