Graphic Card‘s

01.06.2007

by Matthias Schumacher
 Content
y Structure of Graphic Card‘s

y DirectX/OpenGL

y Rendering

y Benchmarking
 Structure of Graphic Cards
y AGP & PCIe
y Graphics processing
unit (GPU)
y Cooling devices
y Video memory
y Outputs
AGP Slot
y is a high-speed point-to-
point channel for attaching
a graphics card to a
computer's motherboard
y primarily to assist in the
acceleration of 3D
computer graphics
PCIe Slot
y Computer expansion card interface format
y It was designed as a much faster interface to replace PCI,
PCI-X, and AGP interfaces for computer expansion cards
and graphics cards.
y The PCI Express (PCIe) physical connection (slot) is
completely different from those of the older standard
PCI Express 1.1/2.0
y With PCIe 1.1 (currently the most common version) each
lane carries 250 MB/s in each direction. The connection
between card and motherboard consists of between one
and 32 lanes giving a maximum transfer rate of 8 GB/s in
each direction
y PCIe 2.0 doubles the data rate of each lane from 250 MB/s
to 500 MB/s.
y Connector can transfer data at up to 16 GB/s in each
direction.
GPU
y main chip on a Graphic
Card
y a special stream processor
y manipulating and
displaying computer
graphics
y dedicated graphics
rendering device
y implements a number of
operations faster than CPU
GPU
y GPUs use most of their
transistors to calculate 3D
computer graphics.
y Accelerate the memory-intensive
work of texture mapping and
rendering polygons
y Later adding units to accelerate
geometric calculations such as
translating vertices into different
coordinate systems
GPU

Without GPU

y PC graphics require a lot y Result can be a slow down

of processing power in performance
GPU

With GPU

y offloads the graphic y CPU free for primary

processing from the CPU system processing
Cooling
y New Graphic Cards have
many transistors

y GPU gets very hot

y Cooling is needed

y Air Cooling with Fan

Video memory(RAM)
y Store graphic data

y GPU takes data from

videoram

y Handle complex graphics

at a fast rate

y Very quick access

Video Memory
y Different types of Video Ram:
y SD-RAM
y transfer one word of data per clock cycle
y DDR SDRAM
y double-pumped

y DDR2 SDRAM
y 4 Words/clock cycle

y DDR3 SDRAM
y 8 Worda/clockcycle
Video Memory
Memory Bus clock Transfer rate

SD-RAM 200 Mhz 3,2 GB/s

DDR 200 Mhz 6,4 GB/s

DDR2 200 Mhz 12,8 GB/s

DDR3 200 Mhz 25,6 GB/s

VGA Port
y 15-Pin VGA connector
found on most video cards
y carry analog component
RGBHV (red - green -
blue - horizontal sync -
vertical sync) video
signals
y Example:CRT –Monitors
DVI Port
y For digital display devices
y For Example:
-LCD‘s
-Plasma Displays
-Projektors
S-Video
y Analog video signal
y Carries video data as two
separate signals
(brightness and color)
y Carries 480i or 576i
resolution video
Cooperation between
Graphic Card and CPU
SLI/Crossfire
y Take two identical
Graphic Cards on one
Motherboard
y Splitting the rendering
of the screen
y Two Cards are more
faster than one
DirectX
y DirectX Graphics, containing two APIs

DirectDraw:
for drawing 2D Graphics (raster graphics)

Direct3D (D3D):
for drawing 3D graphics
Direct 3D
y On Microsoft based Systems
y Ability to quickly render high-quality 3D graphics using
the latest 3D graphics hardware.

y Used to render three dimensional graphics in applications

with high performance

y Applications run in fullscreen

Open GL
y Direct3D's main competitor
y Two main objectives:
y 1. Hide complexity of
interfaces with single
uniform API
y 2. Hide the diffent
requirements of hardware
platforms
y Open Source- Can be expand by
user
Rendering
y Generating an image
from a model/by
computer programs
y Description of 3D
objects in a strictly
defined language or
data structure
y Contain geometry
viewpoint, texture,
lightning, shading
information.
Rendering
y Is a number of visible features

y For Example:
y Shading
y Anti aliasing
y Texture filtering
Shaders
y DirectX and OpenGL graphic libraries use three types of
shaders.
y Vertex shader: graphics processing function used to add
special effects to objects
y Geometry shaders used to combine a series of vertices into
an object that can be affected by pixel shaders.
y Pixel shaders affect individual pixels of an existing
primitive
Shaders

y Without Shader y With Shader

No Anti-Aliasing

y Image with low resolution

y Separate pixels on screen

y Impossible to recognize,
near the top of
Anti-aliasing
y Technique of
minimizing aliasing
when representing a
high reolution signal at
a lower resolution
y Image will be more
sharper
Sinc Filter
y another anti-aliasing
algorithm

y based on the sinc filter

y considered better than

the algorithm used in
picture the before
Texture Filtering
y Method to determine the texture color for a
pixel using the color of nearby pixels

y Blends texture pixels together

y Many different methods of texture filtering

Texture Filtering

y Without Filtering y With Filtering

Rendering
y Put together all
rendering features

y Result is realistic 3D
m0del

y Can be rendered in
realtime from GPU
Benchmarking
y Testing the hardware
y Find out the relative performance
y Comparability with other Systems
y Tests different Components of a PC
y For Example: CPU, GPU, Sound

y Common Benchmarks for PC testing:

y 3D Mark
y PC Mark
3DMark 2006
y Concentrated in testing the GPU

y Measure the 3D hardware supported by Direct X9

y Tests all the features of the Graphiccard

y For Example: ShaderModel3.0
Comparsion of Graphic
Cards
ATI Nvidia
y Examples: y Examples:

y ATI Radeon X1950 XTX y Geforce 8800 XTX

y ATI Radeon X1950 PRO y Geforce 8800 GTS

y ATI Radeon X1650 XT y Geforce 7900 GTX

Benchmark
Benchmark
Benchmark
Future of Graphic Card‘s
y Very quick development

y Gets faster and faster

y Where is the End?