If you can't see, you can't use it. Simple. Video is made up of two components;
the video card (or device if embedded) and the monitor. Both work in unison,
your monitor has to be able to display what the video card is putting out and
the video card must not over drive the monitor.
Video
cards come with different specifications: color, resolution, and speed are
the main considerations.
Monitors also have different specifications: color and resolution are the main
considerations.
So what do these specifications mean?
Resolution: basically resolution is how well your two devices interact to
display your graphics. Have you seen a fuzzy photo of some thing? It was out of
focus, if you don't have a "focus" for your graphics display you have poor
resolution. You can set your display to say 1024 x 786 but every thing looks
"grainy" but at 800 x 600 it looks sharp. It is just bigger. This is resolution.
Color is also a factor in resolution, the higher the numbers of colors your card
can generate the higher and smoother the resolution.
The last factor in resolution is the "pixel" or "dot pitich" count your display
has, a pixel is a spot on the monitor that is extremely small, this number is
horizontal by vertical, such as 1024 x 786. That is 1024 horizontal pixels by
786 pixels, to add to the equation is the color factor of each pixel. The higher
the horizontal by vertical number the higher the resolution.
Speed comes from..... you guessed it RAM. Although the newer video cards have
their own processor, the more RAM you have the less drag on your CPU because
after the CPU processes the commands and acts on the data it sends it to the
Video card to be displayed. This data has to be stored until it can be sent to
the monitor. So where does the lag come in? Two places: the monitor and the CPU.
The CPU can't send any more data to be displayed until all of the previous data
has been sent to the monitor. This is most noticeable in Games or when you have
three or four spreadsheets, three or four word documents and email open at the
same time.
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