What is Video card ?
Video card is a major hardware component used in computers for generating and transferring images to the computer display.
They are most commonly known as graphics card. The principle of working of video cards is very well similar to that of sound card and various other peripheral devices used in computers.
Most commonly used video cards are inserted as separate expansion cards into the motherboard of the computer.
There are added functionalities like video capturing, MPEG decoding etc, provided by video cards. Video cards are not only used for video games, though there is such a misconception prevailing among users.
The range of capabilities provided by video cards is more than this general use. They are specialized to handle video outputs and can improve the display of the computer monitor.
Graphic designers and animators find great uses for video cards. They use these cards to get optimum displays for their profession and for faster rendering of signals to efficiently add power to their work.
The modern video cards are mounted on a PCB with all related components. The components include a graphics processing unit for floating point calculations.
These are used as the basics of 3d graphics functions. Video bios are another major component of video cards and they contain the programs to control the operations of the card as a whole.
The integrated video cards on motherboards use the memory of the computer. In fact the computer memory becomes the video memory in such computers.
There are connection systems that connect the video card and the computer display. The connection systems can be analog based or digital based.
These connection systems connect video cards with DVD players, recorders and televisions. Those which are not integrated on the motherboard have a separate memory referred to as video memory or video RAM.
