Display Adapters

Overview
Display adapters are used to produce output
in the system. It transfers data on to the screen. The display adapter can be used to display alphabets, numbers and special characters.

It can also be used to display images and

figures.

Introduction

Display adapters are essential components in a computer for producing output. It help the end users to transfer the data on to the screen.

The display adapters are the video cards, which are used to connect to the system unit.

Display Modes
Text Mode
The display adapter is designed to display only the characters and the shapes. Each character is identified by an ASCII code. The adapter receives the code from the computer and translates them for displaying them on to the screen.

Graphics Mode
In this mode, each dot on the screen display is made of pixels. Pixel is the smallest amount of data used to represent an image.

Components of Display Adapters

Major components of a graphics adapter

The Hardware components that make up the display system are shown below.

Components of Display Adapters

Graphics Processor

The onboard graphics processor will be able to perform different operations like bitmap transfer and painting, window resizing and repositioning, font scaling, line drawing, polygon drawing etc.
Video Memory

It is a component in the display adapter, which is used to store the video image. The different memory technologies are,
Video RAM (VRAM) Windows RAM EDO DRAM SDRAM SGRAM Direct RDRAM (DRDRAM)

 Random Access Memory Digital to Analog Converter (RAMDAC)

It reads the contents of the video memory and converts the digital information into analog RGB signals and sends it over the video cable to the monitor. The RAMDAC can determine the range of refresh rates supported by the processor and the number of colors that could be available for a given resolution.
Driver Software

It acts as an interface between the monitor and the display adapter. The performance of the display on a monitor greatly depends on the driver software.

Connectors
The types of connectors used to connect a display adapter to the monitor.

9 pin D type connector in a Digital Adapter such as MDA, CGA etc. 15 pin D type arranged in three rows such as VGA, SVGA, AGP adapters DVI (Digital Visual Interface) Connectors
Three types of DVI connectors are

Analog

DVI

DVI-A DVI-D DVI-I

Types of interfaces used to connect to a CRT monitor TTL Video Interface

It is a digital interface where the signals can be either zero or one.

Composite Interface The three signals are combined and are sent in a single wire. It has signals in either analog or digital form.

Video Adapter Specifications

Screen Resolution

It refers to the number of pixels that is used to create an image. The size of the monitor For instance, 1024 x 768 resolutions appear to be perfect on a 17-inch monitor.
Color Depth

For a color display, we need more than one bit to represent one pixel of information, which is called as color depth. The most general resolution used in recent days is 640x480 at 16 colors.

 3D Acceleration

It permits the programs especially games, where the screen image must be recomputed many times per second.
Full Motion Video

Some software packages are shipped with video segments for better understanding of the instructions. Most of the games use the video file format to make it more cinematic. It enables to watch TV on the Windows screen.
Video Card

The game dependent software fully relies on the quality of the video card for frame rate and smooth animation.

Display Standards
Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA)

It can print only text and does not support graphics.

Color graphics adapter

It can be used to display in Red, Green, blue and the combination of these colors.
Video Graphics Array (VGA)

It offers 16 color at 640x480 as the default resolution.

Super Video Graphics Array (SVGA)

It is a standard used by monitors and display adapters. The maximum resolution supported is 800x600.