WEBVTT - TechStuff Looks at Video Cards 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.280 It's ready, are you hey there? Tech stuff listeners, This 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.360 is Jonathan Strickland, and I wanted to talk to you 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:11.639 a little bit about something cool going on at how 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.040 stuff works right now. I know all of you guys 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.119 are really creative and you love technology. Well, now you 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.720 can show us what you're made of, because Toyota is 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.360 sponsoring a new photo upload widget over at how stuff 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.000 works dot com. You can share your gadget ideas, modifications, hacks, 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.080 some great tech ideas. Show us what you're made of. 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:32.640 Let us know how creative you are. You can go 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:37.120 to www dot how stuff works dot com, slash upgrade 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.960 your tech and upload those photos. Now we want to 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:45.040 see what you got. Get in touch with technology with 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:53.760 tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.040 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:57.920 and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:02.720 Sitting across from me, as is senior writer Jonathan he there, 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.280 and I want to warn you all today's episode maybe 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:12.440 graphic that's correct, it's about graphics cards. We have received 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.319 lots of questions and requests for us to do an 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:20.080 episode about graphics cards, some of which hounded us through 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.679 multiple forms of media. And so today you get your wish, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:27.600 we're gonna talk about graphics cards. These are the things 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:34.720 that got me into console gaming, which is true. No, So, Chris, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.960 you and I remember, I mean we were we were 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.880 both using computers during the nineties when there was the 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.319 kind of revolution in personal computers where and a a 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:51.240 an independent secondary graphics card became a necessity if you 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.080 wanted to stay up to date with the latest games 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.880 that were coming out. Yeah. I remember with my very 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.240 first Amiga how they would talk about there were their 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.680 secondary chips on the motherboard that we handle additional operations, 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.760 not just the one processor. And I think, um, it 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.359 probably seems silly to a lot of us now, like, oh, well, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.240 of course you know that would be important. But you know, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.200 as computing has gone on, we've realized some that although 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.600 you have you know, Moore's law, which basically just you know, 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.600 talks about computing power growing exponentially, and you say, well, okay, 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.120 you know you've got more and more powerful computers, but 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.520 we've realized over that time too that although you may 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:40.720 have more powerful processors, Dividing tasks up between multiple processors 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.239 is a better way to compute because you can accomplish 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.960 more when you divide these jobs, and uh, you know, 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.240 it's it's more efficient that way. It's it's very simple. Yeah, 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.000 So a graphics card job essentially is to really manipulate 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.440 computer memory at a very rapid rate so that information 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.320 coming in can be converted into graphic information that's going 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.120 to be displayed upon a monitor of some sort. And 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.919 it's almost its own computer. Yeah, it's it's it's its 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.919 own processor, certainly. And the idea is that this takes 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.160 some of that burden from the CPU and it shoulders 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.400 it itself so that the CPU can um sort of 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.280 become like a manager. The CPU sends the instructions to 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:32.200 the GPU, which then takes care of calculations and and 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.960 it's it's designed to do that in a very streamlined, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.240 fast way. And part of that design is this idea 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.040 of parallelism, which is what Chris was talking about, where 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.640 you have your your chip created in such a way 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.320 to process sets of instructions in parallel with each other 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.480 because those different sets of instructions don't depend directly on 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:00.000 each other. You know, if you think about computer problem. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.120 One type of computer problem could be an ongoing uh 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:09.840 calculation where the outcome of the previous calculation determines what 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.880 the next calculation will be. Right, So we'll just say 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.000 that for the first calculation, we're gonna do something really simple. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.720 Just for example, say that the first calculation is two 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.960 plus two and the the output is four, and then 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.760 the four from that first calculation is used in the 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:31.159 second calculation. Where you have another variable, Well, we'll say 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.640 that for the purposes of this problem, that variable is 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.360 going to be eight, and whatever the product the whatever 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.719 the sum is from that first calculation gets added to eight. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.640 So the the second calculation depends upon the outcome of 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.880 the first one. The two plus two is four. Well, 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.839 now I've got the the sum of that first calculation four. 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.239 I can now add that to eight to get twelve, 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.000 and so on and so forth. Well, with all those 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.799 calculations depending upon one another, having a single processor makes sense. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.040 You can't really divide that up because you don't know 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.839 what the outcome is going to be of a previous calculation, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.719 so you can't move forward until you get that. But 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.960 there are other computer problems which we have talked about 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.160 several times on this podcast that you can divide up 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.800 because they are not interdependent that way, and have a 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:24.480 processor or several processors work on that problem, on those problems, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.120 and the outcome ends up creating whatever it is you 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.400 need and UM. In that case, the GPU design was 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.440 meant to do that. So we had parallel processors with 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:43.680 GPUs well before you started seeing multi cores in consumer computers. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.000 that's true. By the way, if you run across computers 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.240 that offer perpendicular processing, I don't recommend it they I 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:58.760 wasted a lot of money once anyway, being so obtuse UM. Actually, 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.239 when you look at the parts of a graphics card, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.440 UM again, they seem rather you know common sense. You've 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.719 got a graphics card is its own motherboard, It has 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.039 a its own processor on it, UM, and its own memory. UM. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.640 You may actually see, you know, specifications, I remember seeing 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.440 specifications for how much v RAM, video RAM or or 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.279 graphics memory. UM. That's all part of what you see 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.080 on the graphics card. And some graphics cards are you know, customizable. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.600 You can you can add memory. UM depends on your 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.720 computer course, and and all of that also depends on 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.440 your your the type of graphics card you use depends 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.960 heavily upon the kind of motherboard your computer has. That's true. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.760 That's true. Not all motherboards can support all graphics cards. 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.400 It depends on especially if you have an older computer. 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.920 There comes a point with older computers where the newest 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.679 video cards just the old motherboards can't support them. So 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.520 that's one thing to keep in mind that the motherboard 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.400 your your computer's motherboard has a you know, a shelf 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.400 life really and at some point it does become obsolete, 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.400 at least in comparison to the latest hardware that comes 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.480 or the latest components that are out on the market. 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.800 And basically, uh, well, I can't think of a computer 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.920 that doesn't have a video output of some kind on it, 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:27.680 even even laptops or ultra books, you know, things that 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.160 that are designed to have fewer ports than things because 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:35.720 it's streamlined. Even those machines generally have UM some kind 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.160 of video output. Of course, the main one on those 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.800 would be at their own screen, but um coming off 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.160 of the graphics card. You need to uh to be 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.480 able to display the results, so you know, they'll they'll 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.760 generally have some kind of connector UM and of course, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.080 key to this all is your operating system, because your 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:59.960 operating system is uh, what is doing basically the traffic management. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.680 So let's say, uh, probably the main reason we talk 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.200 about graphics cards these days are for you know, really 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:14.960 three things games, um, high resolution video editing or or 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.840 you know, graphics photo editing. You know, those are the 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.560 reasons we really talk about the graphics card. I mean, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.400 if you say, yeah, I've got to surf the web 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.200 on my computer, you don't go, yeah, but what kind 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.360 of graphics card you got, man? I will add I 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.760 will add a fourth a fourth yeah, which has nothing 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.640 to do with graphics. Okay, it's what people have started 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.880 to use GPUs to do. I figured we'd talked about 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.240 that way, which goes back to the parallel processing. So 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.640 the fourth one, I would say, is parallel processing that 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:43.920 does not necessarily go back to video processing. So and 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.800 that can be for lots of different stuff. I know 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.800 specifically which one you're thinking about. But because we did 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.439 our our episode on on password security and talked about 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:57.680 how GPUs have been used to help crack passwords through 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.199 brute force attacks, but they can also be is to 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.280 do other parallel processing, not just you know, cryptography, No, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.640 that that's true because UM, well, actually uh we had 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.800 talked about it on our our podcast about about the 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.240 mac os ten snow Leopard. One of the changes was 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.120 that they added the ability to uh um send instructions. 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.040 And that's really what I was sort of getting at 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.760 with the the operating system is, you know, it's let's 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.400 say you're playing a game and uh you know, you 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.600 have the game itself, the instructions that are going out 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.200 about where your character is and where it's moving across 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.280 the screen, and it's sending other instructions about how to 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.480 render that on the screen to the graphics processor card, 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.920 which takes care of computation for things like the number 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.000 of polygons that you see on the screen, how fast 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.240 those that information can be displayed. So they work in 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.600 concert through the help of the operating system to uh 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.280 manage the rest of the stuff and the graphics specific 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.640 stuff with the two different the two different cars, and 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.480 mac Os ten is able in the newer incarnations of 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.440 the operating system is able to uh um, and I 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.520 assume that's true for newer versions of Windows and Lenox 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.520 as well as you know, able to send instructions to 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:16.840 the graphics cards. So Let's say you are surfing the 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.440 web and maybe you have a music playing on you know, 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.760 music player service, and you've got email going on, and uh, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.200 you know, five or ten other little things going on 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.920 in the background, your calendar software. UM, your graphics card 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.640 may not be working over time. So the processing uh, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.120 you know, the the operating system goes, hey, since you're 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.040 not busy and you handle some of these other instructions, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.319 kind of take a load off this couch. Yeah, exactly. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.400 So it goes in and helps move the couch, um, 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:51.719 so to speak, and take some of the load off 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.640 the main processor, which which is ingenious that any operating 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.120 system would be able to do that. Um, And it 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.520 just so happens. I know about that one because we 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.680 were talking about it in that But you know, the 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.360 operating systems have become so much more sophisticated and to 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.360 be able to take advantage of that specifically, UM, to 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.280 take a load off of the main processors is excellent. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.720 The things that determine how fast a graphics card is, uh, 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.840 it's more than just the GPU clock speed of the processors. 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.720 So keep in mind the heart of this graphics card 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.600 is a processor. We call the GPU. The graphics processing unit. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.440 And and it's it's very similar to a CPU. I 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.480 mean that it's job is to crunch data. It's just 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.679 in this case most of the time that data has 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:43.240 to do with rendering graphics. UM, so the clock speed 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.960 is definitely important. And clock speed, of course, that's generally speaking, 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.400 the number of instructions a CPU can carry out within 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:56.240 a second. Uh, that's the number of cycles. Because keeping 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.720 in mind that when I say instruction, really instruct it's 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.640 really cycles, and some instructions require multiple cycles to complete. 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.080 I want to make sure I get that before people 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.360 are like, well, you know actually, and people are going 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:12.520 to mention the fact that processors can be overclocked or underclocked. Yeah, 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.040 that that speed is a rating that the manufacturer gives 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.800 it that basically says, this will operate the way we've 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:20.920 set it up on this board. It will operate at 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.160 this speed it's gonna and it's a safe speed. It's 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.920 not going to cause the processor, processor to overheat falls. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.920 It falls within certain operating parameters that are considered to 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.760 be optimal for that system. So yeah, it's the rated speed. Yeah, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:38.560 and just like CPUs, you can overclock GPUs aboutely want to. 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:40.439 In fact, there are a lot of video gamers out there, 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.960 that's what they do. Uh. So that's one thing that 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.920 determines how fast a video graphics card is able to 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.120 handle graphics. But that's not the only thing, because you 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.000 also have to worry about getting information to and from 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:57.720 that uh that that processor. So the size of the 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.160 memory bus is really important. The memory bus this is 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:02.480 kind of you can think of that is sort of 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.920 like the highway between the memory and the processor. And 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.000 you want a nice wide highway so that you can 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.200 shove as much data towards that processor as possible. Because 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.280 the processor, if it's really fast and is able to 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.160 handle a lot of instructions, that doesn't matter so much. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.520 If it can't get the data it needs fast enough, 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.760 it may just be that, yeah, I'm super smart, but 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.840 you're giving me math problems at a rate that is, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.959 you know, nowhere near my capacity, and so a lot 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.840 of this power is going to waste. So the memory 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:38.319 bus is a very important part of that equation, you know, 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.600 because you you you said the memory buses. It's like well, 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.360 and and that's the funny part about that is if 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.360 you're thinking about it in terms if that if you 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.760 made that visual connection to it's not um it really is. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.520 The bus is the connection itself, not because I was 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.040 actually thinking of bus and what in the term given 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.520 in my in the right context, not in the vehicular 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:06.200 one I want. But also other things that that determine 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.800 the speed include the amount of available memory, so that 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.040 onboard memory that's on that graphics card plays a big part. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.000 That's just that's just as true in your computer for 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.080 general computing purposes. You know, your computer needs a good 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.040 amount of memory, so the CPU does not have to 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.320 constantly look for the information within your systems hard drive. 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.040 That slows things down. So keeping more and more data 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.560 in memory means the CPU doesn't have to consult the 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.120 hard drive so much and things just move at a 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.800 faster clip. Very important when you're rendering graphics, because you know, 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:40.600 you want to be able to render graphics at a 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.040 really good speed. Humans like in general twenty five frames 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.000 per second. That's a good speed for us. It's hard 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:52.520 for us to detect uh problems at anything that's faster 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:57.680 than that. But for high you know, really action oriented 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.240 video games with lots of high speed stuff. Stick Steve 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.360 frames per second is generally considered, that's your goal. You 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.360 want to hit sixty frames per second because you're not 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.760 going to have too much blurring or artifacts or other 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.800 problems if you're able to display information at that speed 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.640 and uh and so that's really important as well. The 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:24.280 memory clock rate is also important. Memory bandwidth um and uh. 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:30.760 If you're using an ancient system, ramdack speed. So ramdack 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.320 that's uh. When when the process is handling this information, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.960 it's all digital, right, it's all ones and zeros. Some 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.600 of us who have older computer systems may have display 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.440 that's not digital. We might have an analog display, which 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.960 means you have to convert those signals from digital to analog. 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.640 That's what the ram dex job is. But these days 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.240 most displays are digital. If you were to go out 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.400 and buy a system now, it would be it would 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.320 have a digital display. Analog just doesn't really that's not 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.440 a thing anymore. So it's really for people who have 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.240 older systems they would have to worry about the ram 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.840 dag issue. In fact, I'm sure that it's being phased 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.160 out of almost everything at this point because I mean, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.520 you know, why would you be using this older monitor 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.160 when you could go out and get a new display. 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.120 Tune in this week is Captain Atomic takes on the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:27.160 evil of ram Dak. Yeah, yeah, different different Ramdackum you 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.960 will phase him out. So and like you were saying that, 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:35.920 the job of this is to to to the the 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.560 job that we were intending graphics cards to do, I 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.720 should say, was to render graphics. And uh so like 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.640 the polygon issue, that's generally speaking, it tends to be 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.320 triangles a second, and uh and and these these little 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.680 bit tiny triangles are what make up the various surfaces 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.160 you see in represented in computer graphics. Yeah, we're talking 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:02.200 primarily three dimensional type stuff, three D graphics, so that 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.560 there's at least an illusion of depth. In fact, that's 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.960 really where the graphics cards came out of. You know. Um, 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.840 before that, you might have a GPU in a computer, 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.560 but it would be uh incorporated directly onto the motherboard. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.560 It wasn't an additional card like you said. The Amiga 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.320 had them. The Amiga is one of the earliest systems 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.240 to have its own GPU. Before that, you could have 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.720 graphics that were vector based graphics, like you know, the 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.360 the video game Asteroids was vector based graphics. Yeah, these 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.960 are games vector vector versus raster we're talking about here, Yes, 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.280 I love those. We can stop giving examples, but I 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.680 guess it helps to explain what the differences between vector 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:50.280 graphics and raster graphics. Vector graphics graphics are mathematical there, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.040 they're like line art exactly. It's it's geometrical shapes that 0:17:55.080 --> 0:18:01.040 are based on mathematic uh, calculations. So these are lines 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.960 and curves points. They could be shapes like polygons and uh. 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.680 The nice thing about vector graphics is they are really scalable. 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.399 You can it's dependent upon what your machine can do, 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.359 not dependent upon the file. Uh. So in other words, 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.920 you can a vector graphic at a certain size is 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.840 going to look just as good or not as good 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.600 as it will be at a size many many manion 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.840 times larger than that. It all depends on the equipment, 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.399 not on the graphics file. Yeah. Now, now, raster graphic 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.840 or bitmapped graphics UM is made up of basically made 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.680 up of little dots and um. That's the way are 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.000 are our printers work, That's the way our displays works. 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.920 So this is raster graphics that's much more common. Yeah. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.760 So well, if you talk about a good example, I 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.600 think for what you were mentioning was photos. Yeah, if 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.240 you've ever taking a photo, put on your computer and 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.440 decided you wanted to blow it up, you may notice 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:10.160 that it starts to look rather grainy, block and yeah 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.800 or blocky. You can see a little sharp angles where 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.520 the which or the outlines of the pixels really yeah, 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.560 and and then and what it's doing is the computer 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:23.840 is basically having to make up information in between the 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.560 little dots of information that came with the picture. So 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.440 you know, it's it's going, well, that's kind of green 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.440 and this kind of orange. All I'll split the difference 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.000 and uh and uh, you know, when you make something smaller, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.840 it's easy because you're compressing the information. It can go, 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:43.880 oh well, I don't need these pixels, so I'll toss 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.520 them out and uh, you know things that you can 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.520 only shrink a photo without distorting it, but expanding it 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.720 as a different question and a graphics vector graphics aren't 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.080 like that because when you blow something up, it goes, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.400 oh well, basically it's this point in that point, I'm 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:04.119 you do the math. It looks fine. So the games 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:06.800 and stuff that we play, those are raster graphics. That's 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.280 where we've got those those images that are made up 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:14.360 of pixels. So, um, you know, that's trying to create 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:22.280 a uh, a detailed graphic representation of a character, especially 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.320 character that's in motion and doing lots of stuff at 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.200 a at a good frame rate. That's that's a pretty 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:31.040 intensive process as far as processing power is concerned. Um. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:36.240 And that's why we had companies start to develop graphics 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.760 cards to help take this load off the onboard graphics 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.040 chips that computers had because they just weren't up to 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.800 the task of processing that amount of information. Which meant 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.760 that if you went out and you had a regular PC, 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.600 will off the shelf PC, no additional graphics card other 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.199 than what the onboard graphics card was, uh, and you 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.679 come home, plug it in and you load up that 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.120 first person shooter game that's brand new, it would not 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.359 run very well. You would have to run it at 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.040 a very low detail quality, so that it's having to 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.840 do fewer polygons on the screen at a time because 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.639 it just didn't have the processing power to keep up. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.800 Or you'd have to really and or you'd have to 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.520 really reduce the frame rate so that the actual experience 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:28.280 is not as smooth or pleasant. And you might think, wow, 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.000 this is a terrible game, but really it's because the 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.639 hardware you're running on isn't up to the task of 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.520 running the game at the the experience that the game 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:42.159 developers intended. So the graphics cards were what allowed you 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.399 to plug it in, usually in a well. Back in 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.720 the day, it was PC I or UM white a 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.080 g P. Yeah, those were the two card slots to 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.760 would plug them into. Today it's PC I Express almost 0:21:55.800 --> 0:22:00.200 exclusively um where which has got a It's it's a 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.879 more efficient and faster way of transferring information from a 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:09.040 card to the motherboard and uh and out to a display. 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.399 So you would plug you would plug this in, and 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.280 it was designed to be pretty easy, I mean relatively speaking. 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.879 You're not soldering or anything, opening up a computer case, 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.200 sliding a card in an expansion slot, screwing it tight 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.919 so that it's not gonna wiggle in the case, close 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:31.440 it back up, plug in your your peripherals, and you're 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.600 good to go. It's a little more complicated now because 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.520 if you're getting a state of the art, fastest possible 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.720 processor you can get for a GP, especially you're getting 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:45.600 two of them, because there are a lot of motherboards 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:50.600 out there now that support dual graphics cards. Um, some 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.600 of these are so powerful that they require more power 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.119 than what the motherboard can supply. More power. Yeah, so 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.280 they have to plug into your computer's actual powers apply, 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:05.480 not the motherboard. And uh, particularly if they are so 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:09.800 powerful that they have their own onboard fans. The fan 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.400 used to help distribute the hot air so that the 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.800 processor does not overheat. Yeah, well that's that's one of 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:22.400 the problems that that prevent high end graphics cards from 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:27.760 being included with some laptops, which is simply because it's 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.800 easier to put in a high end graphics card that 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:35.040 requires its own fan in a tower case, really a 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:39.919 towered desktop computer case, because there's simply more room for it. Um. 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:44.600 Less room on a laptop in general, less ability to 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:47.840 find a way to disperse that extra heat. So not 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.040 only are you're you dealing with the main central processing 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:54.680 unit CPU, you're also dealing with the GPU. And you're going, wow, 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.000 this is going to burn someone's legs off when they 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:59.080 put it on their lap because I don't actually have 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:00.600 a good way to disperse a seat, or it's going 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:02.879 to cause the machine to shut down after twenty minutes 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:06.600 of working, which is probably not quite as bad as 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:11.080