1. Nick Sims Like a motherboard, a graphics card is a printed circuit board that houses a processor and RAM.

2.  Think of a computer as a company with its own art department.  When people in the company want a piece of artwork, they send a request to the art department.  The art department decides how to create the image and then puts it on paper.  The end result is that someone's idea becomes an actual, viewable picture.

3.  A graphics card works along the same principles.  The CPU, working in conjunction with software applications, sends information about the image to the graphics card.CPU  The graphics card decides how to use the pixels on the screen to create the image.  It then sends that information to the monitor through a cablemonitor

4.  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 rasterizes the image (fills in the remaining pixels).  It also adds lighting, texture and colour.  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.

5.  A graphics card (video adapter, video card, graphics accelerator card, display adapter) is an expansion card which generates output images to a display i.e. monitor.expansion card  Most graphics cards offer added functions, such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, as well as video capture.3D2D graphics

6.  The graphics card accomplishes this task using four main components:  A motherboard connection for data and powermotherboard  A processor to decide what to do with each pixel on the screenprocessor  Memory to hold information about each pixel and to temporarily store completed pictures Memory  A monitor connection so you can see the final resultmonitor

7.  A modern video card consists of a printed circuit board on which the components are mounted. These include:  Graphics Processing Unit  Video BIOS  Video memory  RAMDAC, or Random Access Memory Digital- to-Analog Converter  Outputs Video In Video Out (VIVO) for S-Video (TV-out), Digital Visual Interface (DVI) for High-definition television (HDTV), and DB-15 for Video Graphics Array (VGA)

8.  Update Your Drivers  If you're thinking of replacing your card because you're having problems running a certain game, make sure you have the latest version of the drivers for your current graphics card. You will find the latest drivers for your card available for download from the manufacturer's Web site.

9.  Chipsets  For the purpose of gaming, two developers of 3D graphics card chipsets have come to dominate the market: nVidia and ATI.  While there are many video card manufacturers and brands, most of them build their cards around chipsets designed and supported by one of these two companies.  Certain games will run a little better on one chipset than another - something you might want to consider before deciding which way to go.

10.  AGP vs. PCI-Express  A long time ago the Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) replaced the Peripheral Component Interface (PCI) as the standard way to connect the graphics card to the motherboard.  PCI-Express is a new and faster form of PCI, which is replacing AGP as the standard for graphics card slots.  PCI-Express offers roughly twice the data transfer rate of 8x AGP. You can't put a PCI-Express card in an AGP slot or vice versa, so your motherboard will have to have PCI-Express if you want to use a PCIE card.

11.  Onboard Memory  256 MB of memory is, at the time of writing this, about the minimum for a gamer looking for a new card. When it comes to memory, more is always better, although it does raise the price of the card. 512 MB cards are now common in all price ranges, but there are high-end cards with 1 GB or more of memory onboard.

12.  Frame Rates  As the term implies, frame rate is an indication of how many frames per second your system can display.  The rate not only varies from game to game, it is also affected by the game's settings and the action taking place at any given moment in the game.  Frame rate is, in some ways, the ultimate test of a video card's speed, so a lot of sites compare cards on this basis. The fastest cards in this regard are usually the most expensive as well.

13.  DirectX  While you may need the latest version of Microsoft DirectX (DX) software to run a game, this doesn't necessarily mean that your card must be fully compatible with the latest version of DX, you simply won't be able to use certain graphics features.  Most new games support cards that have built-in DX 9 features, but will still run on a video card from the DX 8 era, for example. When in doubt, look for the specific chipsets that the game you want to play supports.

14.  This has been a standard feature in game- oriented video cards for quite a few years, but there are still PCs around that don't have it.  These are usually systems with Intel graphics integrated into the motherboard, commonly used in budget laptops and desktops designed for office use.  If your desktop doesn't have hardware T&L and you have a graphics card slot available, adding a newer graphics card could be an option.

15.  Power Consumption  Many cards designed for gaming require a considerable amount of power, and they often have additional power connectors on them because they can't get enough juice through the slot itself.  They also require a relatively good power supply, especially for SLI and Crossfire systems with dual video cards.  If you're upgrading to the latest high-end card, you may find yourself upgrading your power supply as well. Power requirements are usually stated in the graphics card's specifications.

16.  http://internetgames.about.com/od/hardware/b b/bybvideocard.htm http://internetgames.about.com/od/hardware/b b/bybvideocard.htm  http://www.howstuffworks.com/video-game.htm http://www.howstuffworks.com/video-game.htm  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/sound- card.htm http://computer.howstuffworks.com/sound- card.htm  http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard- disk3.htm http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard- disk3.htm  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_music http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_music  http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs- 012644.htm http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs- 012644.htm