Introduction - This 3D dictionary was created to define any 3D term you've been pondering. As you may have noticed, technical terms in any article written here at Tweak3D is linked directly to the corresponding term in this dictionary. Every definition is written in common English, some even having similes, metaphors, and simple analogies. So don't hesitate thinking you won't even understand this all, read on! Did I mention how big this mofo is?
A3D (Aureal3D) - Automatic Texture Compression A3D (Aureal3D) - an API optimized to create 3D positional
sound and Doppler Effecting using only two speakers unlike other forms of 3D
sound applicable hardware/software that use four or more. Interestingly enough,
it was made using algorithms
initially developed by NASA, for what reason-- I have no clue.. What this means?
- basically it is a program type-deal that allows you to hear sound in games,
programs, etc, in 3D not only using a "which side is it coming from" (3D
positional sound) technique, but also a "how far away is it technique" (Doppler
Effecting). For example: when you are close to a sound in a 3D game the pitch is
higher, and when you are farther away, the pitch is lower. In real life this is
caused by the spreading out of sound waves over a certain distance. The only
difference to the almost industry standard 3D sound is the Doppler
Effecting. AC-3 - technical term for
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. This is an algorithm
the encodes sound into five separate channels and sends each to a different
speaker. What this means? - it's the technology behind what makes that big
screen television with that swank sound system sound so cool when you watch
movies enabled for it. You know-- the bus in Speed sounds like it comes from
behind when really the sound of the bus sound is just moving from the speakers
behind you to the speakers in front of you. A more primitive, Mr. Handyman type
way of simulating 3D sound, as opposed to the Mr. Ingenious Aureal3D
technological way, which offers the same effect for far less in terms of
hardware cost. Don't like the Home Theater analogy thing, than think of the
sound system used at ye' local theater down at town square. Know how you wet
yourself from the sound when it says Dolby Surround? Well that's some AC-3 for ya'. Accelerated Graphics Port (also
AGP) - an expansion bus (a nice little slot on the motherboard
which allows for expansion of a PC or customization of it when first being
built) that was specifically developed by Intel to home a video card. Most newly
released video cards are available in both an AGP or PCI form.
So what is the difference between AGP and PCI?
Sheer speed, AGP can send the CPU
information at up to four times faster (266MHz, MHz stands for megahertz, just a
term used to express how fast information is processed and sent in the computer
world) than the formal PCI
standard expansion bus for video cards. Although most present-day video cards
are only able to process and send information in an equivalent of 2x (133MHz)
realistically, the extra 4x (266MHz) makes the AGP bus (slot) the new bad boy on
the block for the future. Layman's terms: most video accelerators and video
cards come in two different flavors, AGP and PCI. AGP
is faster than PCI,
giving an AGP board or video accelerator,
a boost in terms of speed and performance over its PCI precedent. Be careful
though, does your computer have an AGP slot? Be sure to check and make sure
using information provided by your computer manufacturer before you go out and
blow some money on an AGP card when you have nowhere to plug it in. Accelerator - a
card or board that is an extension of a computer. Basically, a piece of
hardware that processes specific information separately, freeing up how much
information the CPU must
process. Examples of information that can be processed separately include video,
sound, and DVD
decoding. Although most of the information processed by an accelerator must
still take a visit to the CPU,
substantial increase in speed, quality, and performance of specific information
is present with an accelerator. Say your friend had to do a ton of work before
he was able to party with you one night, by helping him out you would serve as
an accelerator to him, the CPU. Get
it? The two most popular types of accelerators are video and sound accelerators,
most oftenly referred to as a video card and sound card. On an interesting note,
almost every PC today has a video accelerator, whether it be 2D, 3D, or 2D and
3D. Without one, you wouldn't see anything on your monitor right now. Algorithm - in
short, a way of doing something. Used mostly in algebra as formulas to figure
out specific things. Algorithms may also include a pre-determined path in which
variables are not present and don't need a definition. For example, the
algorithm to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle is (a*a) + (b*b) = (c*c) So
the square root of a squared plus b squared equals the length squared of the
longest side of the triangle, the hypotenuse. By the way, that equation is the
Pythagorean Theorem. Algorithmic
Procedure Texturing - a method of rendering imagery with
virtually unlimited detail. Simple enough, but for those that are already lost
it is basically an algebraic formula that allows an image or picture you see on
screen to have an almost unlimited detail level. In fact, it is only limited to
hardware capabilities. To understand it more, look up Algorithm.
Procedure is self explanatory, and texturing
is basically the making of an image with numerous properties. Alpha-Blending
- The ability to give an image, or pixel at the smallest level, a attribute that
will determine whether the image will appear solid (opaque), invisible
(transparent), or semi-transparent. When used in conjunction with polygons, this
method can be used to create glass, water,or anything else that is virtually
'see-through'. Mainly, just a really cool effect that make games more
realistic. Anisotrophic
Filtering - Alright so you got texturing
and the bit, and what all that does for you. But what doesn't it? Well basically
what anisotrophic filtering does. Other texture filtering
techniques cause an object to become too smooth or blurred which is sometimes
unpleasing to the eye. Anisotrophic filtering, however, filters (or blends) a
certain texture three dimensionally. Instead of just averaging a central pixel's
color and those pixels around it forming a square, anisotrophy averages a pixel
and the pixels around it forming the original shape, which may not necessarily
be a square, yet a random polygon. All this improvement over trilinear
filtering comes at a pretty hefty price though, that being the entire
process is very slow. On a more interesting, and less technical note, the Riva
TNT was one of the first 3D accelerators to be able to do this. Anti-aliasing
- More of a 3D software technique, anti-aliasing smoothes the edges of diagonal
lines across your screen. Basically, when you are looking at a wall in a Quake
II, the diagonal lines making it up will look straight (up and down), while the
horizontal lines will mimic the depth and direction of the wall or object by
curving which resembles steps. In 3D hardware, anti-aliasing is replaced or
binded with such techniques as bilinear
and trilinear
filtering which smoothes all objects in its own way, explained in their
definitions... API - Stands for
Application Programming Interface, or just Application Interface. It is
basically just a common piece of coding in an Operating System that programmers
can link to instead of rewriting the entire bit of code. What does this have to
do with 3D? A lot more than you would think. Say a game was written with its own
unique code for displaying 3D, this would make the game virtually incompatible
with most 3D accelerators
because the code was not written to tell that specific 3D hardware what to do.
So the gaming world and the 3D hardware world came up with a solution, lets make
an API everyone understands! This way a 3D accelerator
can be written to run with an API that was written to run with a game, that was
also written to run with that API. And also vice versa. In layman's terms,
almost all games and 3D accelerators
have a common language. Some very popular 3D API's include OpenGL, Direct3D, and
Glide3D. Good games and 3D hardware are made to run a vast many API's making
them compatible with a vast many of eachother. Come on, who would buy a 3D accelerator
that didn't work with any game, and who would buy a game that didn't work with
your 3D accelerator?
(an API is similar to giving someone the finger, saying #$%@ off in Croatian to
a New York cab driver wouldn't do much good, but everyone understand what the
finger means =) API Extension
- First see application
programming interface, second an API extension is more of a personalized or
'added to' existing API making it
more or less optimized for the specific hardware/software that it was written
for. Two that come to mind is Creative Labs' EAX which works in conjunction with
Microsoft's DirectSound3D, and 3Dfx's optimized 3Dfx OpenGL- an application
extension of the plain old OpenGL API. Aspect Ratio -
The width to height ratio of a display area or image. This is found by taking an
images height, and dividing it by its width and then simplifying it. The common
screen resolution
of 800x600 simplifies down to an aspect ratio of 4:3 whereas each width/height
is divisible by 200. Artifact - The
result of sucky texture
compression technology. When you see a compressed texture where parts of it
seem 'sponged' on, this is considered an artifact of the image. In 2D and 3D
images, artifacts are found where two very different colors meet. Auto Texture
Compression - This is basically a graphics accelerator's
ability to automatically compress a texture's file size, making graphics display
faster without much loss in image quality. You would be able to eat more jelly
beans at once if each were smaller, right?
Bilinear Filtering - Bump Maps Bilinear
Filtering - this is a feature implemented in most 3D accelerators that allows your computer to render
graphics less pixelated or blocky-looking.This feature is widely used to smooth
out textures and make them more pleasing to the eye. Basically the colors of
four pixels (or texels if you 'bundle of sticks' want to get technical)
are taken and averaged to make one nice, solid, and smooth pixel through the
nice term filtering that can be found after bilinear. However, bilinear
filtering sometimes may cause an object in a game, or whatever, to lose depth or
the "texture-feel" originally intended. This is where the process Trilinear Filtering comes in, which you can read about
later on... Bitmap - basically
any image you see on your computer monitor can be called a bitmap. Basically a
'map' of dots arranged in rows and columns, each dot (or pixel at the smallest scale) is assigned a given color
that in conjunction with other dots forms a graphical image! The more bits of
data each dot is allowed to hold lets a greater number of colors to be
represented, and we all know the more colors the better. Anyone who had a
LightBright when they were little will probably pick up on this concept easily,
however if you are the more mature type (or just too cool to admit it) than bitmapping can be compared to Impressionism art =] Bitmapping - if
you are reading this in order than this should come as a no brainer, however if
not then here is the definition. Basically bitmapping is the act of your
computer's hardware in rendering pictures or bitmaps on the screen by drawing each individual pixel or dot in the coordinating row/column. This
process is done so incredibly fast by your computer that in one second the
average computer draws 20 frames, each frame containing over a half a million dots. Now just
think, half the video accelerators we review at this site can hit over 70 frames in a second, with each frame containing nearly two million dots... And on atop
of that they also do a million other things in that same second to each frame,
like bilinear filtering, etc... Damn I'm stupid, I just wrote an entire
paragraph when I could have just said the act of rendering a bitmap. Blocky
Filtering - this is really not a filtering method, more or
less a term to describe texture-mapped visuals in a game that appear blocky or
pixelated. If you sincerely don't know what I'm talking
about by 'blocky' then try turning on 'software mode' in Quake II, then you will
know what I mean! Bump-Mapping -
is a visual trick or method used to simulate an objects surface texture, for example roughness or smoothness. To do
this in 3D, developers assign each polygon two textures. One of which is a normal base texture for visual graphics much like any other texture in a game. A second is a displacement texture that is mapped on an object, this one simulates
the roughness of the object. So why not just graphically make an object look
bumpy? That has to do with lighting. A bump-mapped texture reflects light differently from different
angles just like a naturally rough or smooth surface does here in the real
world. This is why a transition from graphically rough textures to bump-mapped rough textures was made, or is being right now. Bump-Maps - a
bump-map is basically two texture-maps slapped down on top of each other.
Bump-maps are able to have an actual surface texture, full fit with crevices, bumps, and whatever...
If you haven't read the definition for bump-mapping, you are probably really confused, so
check out its definition above.
Clock Cycle - a
clock cycle is one operation done by a microprocessor in which electricity goes
through a processor turning transistors on or off which is parallel to the 1's
and 0's that make up any computer operation at the most simplified state.
Hundreds of millions of clock cycles are performed every second in the most
average of microprocessors today, whether it being the CPU or the chip on your 3D graphics accelerator. Clock
Frequency - the clock frequency is basically how fast a chip
performs internal operations. This is controlled by and oscillator that
synchronizes operations inside the chip. Clock frequency is expressed in MHz or
millions of cycles per second. For example, a 200MHz (200 megahertz) processor
performs 200 million clock cycles per second. Clock Speed -
the clock speed is how fast in MHz a 3D accelerator or processor runs. The more the megahertz,
the faster the chip and more powerful... Collision
Detection - is the ability of an object in 3D to react with
other 3D objects in a realistic form. Basically, when you see an object such as
a box in a 3D game on the floor, what allows the box to 'know' not to fall
through the floor is collision detection. As collision detection becomes more
advanced and easier to process, games will become more realistic in that objects
will become smaller just as their lifelike counterparts are and still react with
other objects realistically. Color
Convergence - the colors red, green, and blue are mixed, or
converged, in a color monitor to make all other colors. This process is known as
color convergence and is one of the many reasons a computer monitor has such a
sharp display-- because of advanced, precise color convergence! Colored
Lighting - colored lighting is the use of not only pure white
light to cast shadows and to light up objects, yet other colors of light, hence
the name-- colored lighting. This effecting is one that many gamers today take
for granted, without it, things would look a lot more dull. Composite - this
is the TV video signal in which red, blue, and green colors are mixed together.
This term will mostly be used to talk about a 3D accelerators composite output, giving an accelerator the ability to hook up cable and watch some
quality television broadcasting on your computer... Compression -
this term is becoming more and more important in today's computer industry.
Anyone who listens to MP3's should be very appreciative, but what does it mean
for 3D video? More than you think, when we talk about compression it is the
ability to shrink file size without losing too much graphical detail, meaning
your 3D accelerator spits out textures faster... For more info,
check out the definition to Automatic Texture Compression technology. CPU - stands for
Central Processing Unit. Although some sound cards and video cards independently
process information for specific things, almost all operations of a computer
must pass through the CPU to be 'processed'. If you compare a computer to the
human body, this would be the brain.
Daughter Card - D3D (Direct3D) Daughter Card
- a daughter card is a card or board that is dependent upon another card or
board in order to work properly. An example of a 3d accelerator that is a referred to as a daughter card is
3dfx's Voodoo2. The Voodoo2 was dependent upon a separate 2d accelerator that is linked to via a pass-thru cable.
This is because a Voodoo2 is 3d only, and inevitably needs a 2d card to run 2d.
DDR-SDRAM - stands
for Double Data Rate SDRAM. Memory capable of communicating on both edges of a
clock cycle. This virtually doubling the memory's speed from 100MHz to 200MHz.
DDR-SDRAM is currently being implimented in many GeForce high-breeds, and other
devices practically requiring fast memory. Dedicated Frame
Buffer - the dedicated frame buffer is a specific amount of
memory set aside to store frame-buffer and/or z-buffer data on a card with a spit memory
architecture. Most 3d cards have a memory architecture where the memory storing
textures and the memory for the frame buffer are not
separate, in such an instance a 'dedicated frame buffer' does not exist. DVD - stands for
Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc. Most believe DVD-ROMs will take
place of CD-ROMs in next-gen systems. I being one of those people, why? Well
DVDs realistically store 4.7gb of information on a single side without being
multi-layered. For those saying 'ohh, wow' sarcastically, that is almost seven
times the storage capacity over the industry standard CD-ROM disc (which stores
approximately 680mb of information). Now if you think back on the evolution of
computers, five years ago most thought they would never use up 1.4mb 3.5 disk,
and today most think that a game won't use up a 680mb CD-ROM disc-- but as games
and other software become larger do to hardware that can support bigger textures
and the rest, DVDs promise to play a crucial part. Also they are beginning to
replace videotapes as a cheaper and better means (in material cost) to watch
movies. DirectSound -
Microsoft's universal sound API which helps developers optimize a game to work with
many soundcards by only programming a game for one API. Which is basically what an Application Programming Interface does, so you should
have been able to put that one together =] Did I mention it was part of
Microsoft's DirectX bag? Damn them for trying to monopolize the
world! (sarcasm, j/k) DirectSound3D
- 3D at the end, no 3D at the end, what's the difference? Nothing, well
everything. Also a Microsoft API, this time for positional 3d sound. When I first
experienced DirectSound3D it sucked, but now more developers are beginning to
support it, so someone thinks its getting better... Direct3D - this is
part of the DirectX family of APIs for graphics. Almost all capable 3d accelerators and cool games support it, making it very
important for a card to have good Direct3D Performance. I wouldn't choose to run
Direct3D over such APIs as OpenGL or Glide, but it is a hell of a lot better than software-rendering, you gotta give it that. DirectX -
Microsoft's line of generic-brand APIs =] Being Microsoft born and raised, almost
everyone supports 'em. The two important ones you'll see on this site are DirectSound3D, Direct3D. Displacement
Map - the second texture map in the bump-mapping procedure used to simulate bumpiness by
depicting how light casts shadows across the surface of the original texture. Distortion - not
the traditional distortion of sound in a bad way, yet any change in frequencies
of sound from your soundcard and speakers is considered distortion. Dithering -
dithering is a visual artifact caused by the lowering of color depth or
amount of colors in an image or graphic. Examples of dithering is when a texture loses its smoothness and becomes pixelated. Doppler
Effecting - a sound's effect of becoming higher in pitch then
lower when passing by. In games this is very important for realistic sound, as a
rocket just wouldn't be the same passing by you without it... For more
information see Aureal3d. Driver - the
specific pieces of software that tell you hardware what to do. Without drivers
for something, hardware is unusable because there is nothing to tell it what to
do. One of the operating systems main jobs that you don't see, is to manage and
use drivers. D3D (Direct3D) - see Microsoft's Direct3D API.
EAX (Environmental Audio) - Environment Mapping EAX (Environmental Audio)
- this is Creative Lab's personal little 3d positional sound software and API. What makes it pretty cool is that it is based on
reverberation, which you can read about later. electro-planar - electro-planar is the
technology behind flat-panel speakers. I can't say I know all that much about
how it works, but I do know those little things kick-ass-- then again for a
pretty penny! I guess the speakers are 'operated' by an electromagnetic field
that causes thin material to vibrate omitting 'oh so sweet' sound, but don't
quote me on that. engine - when I
refer to an engine at this site I'm talking about the programming behind a game
or how it runs. Some game engines are better than others in the way that they
are coded which is seen through cooler effects, colors, and all around graphics,
or faster gameplay and framerates! environment-mapping
- a good environment-mapped texture can reflect other textures and objects around it accurately, so basically
environment-mapping is giving a texture the ability to accurately reflect its
surroundings in its own texture, right?
Fill Rate - the
rate at which pixels are rendered onto your computer monitor via your
videocard. Basically, a higher fill rate means better, usually measured in
millions of pixels per second. Filtering -
filtering is really explained in bilinear, trilinear, and anistrophic filtering. All you need to know is that its
a 3D accelerators means to smoothing out textures by averaging pixels into values closer to
others making everything smooth and flowing... =] Floating-Point - floating-point numbers
are fractional integers with very precise values. A processors ability to do
good mathematically floating-point means faster and smoother gameplay in games
in conjunction with a 3D videocard, why? Well basically because in all game engines more precise numbers are needed, as opposed to
whole numbers to give you a more realistic feel, and that's what its all about,
right? If you do recall, back in '98 AMD released their 3DNow! enabled line of x86 processors (x86 is just
their architecture, a Pentium clone if you will). Know why 3DNow! was so hyped, because it offered very good and
fast floating-point instructions speeding up almost any game that was optimized
by a good 5-10 frames per second. Now you know... FMV (Full Motion Video)
- FMV's are prerendered, non-interactive, and prescripted video clips. The Sony
Playstation's ability to play FMV's from game CD's offered much offense in the
Playstation vs. Nintendo64 wars. I personally wish the PC and N64 offered such
high-quality and life-like FMV ability, it really is breathtaking, I suggest you
watch one. Fogging - fogging
is yet another pretty cool yet not so cool effect most 3D accelerators offer. In brief, this is a videocard's
effecting ability used to simulate fog. This can be used by developers of games
to one, put fog in an eerie part of a game, coming off steaming water, the
like-- or two, to really hurt, hinder, and make a game unplayable by purposely
using it to hide small bitmapped textures way off in the distance because the
game developer was too damn lazy to make the textures bigger. However, I won't mention any game
developers that do that, *cough* Acclaim, *hiccup* Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. FPS (Frames per Second)
- this is pretty funny, but it always seems that what makes a good videocard
better than its competitor is how many frames per second it pumps out in Quake2
on timedemo 1... Check out the definition for frame and then you should pick up on what frames per
second is or simply a measure of how fast a 3D card performs. Just a note, a
good 3D accelerator should hit about 60fps on average. I don't
want to get into the controversy, but I for one really cannot tell the
difference between 60fps and 120fps when just playing a game, and that's what
it's all about-- considering most games can't pump out more than 40-50 frames in
that second... Frame - a frame is
one still picture rendered to your computer monitor. If you are familiar with
those cartoon flip books in a cereal box you should pick up on this quickly (or
if you have an IQ above 5 for that matter =). One frame when combined with
others, each slightly changed from the previously displayed, can simulate
movement. That is how a game, TV, and scrolling down this page all work. Frame Buffer -
the frame buffer is an amount of memory on a video accelerator set aside to store temporary frames that are being displayed to the screen. A bigger
frame buffer in memory size offers more colors, and higher resolutions for that specific 3D card.
Game Engine - Graphics Pipeline Game Engine - see engine. The programming code behind a game. Gamma Correction - is the ability to
manipulate the red, green, or blue values of a pixel or texture in whole to affect how bright a graphic is...
Glide3D (Glide) - this is 3dfx's own API for displaying some kick-ass graphics. Its easier
and better to program for than Direct3D in my opinion and also performs better from a
consumer view. The only problem being is a proprietary API by 3dfx, only the Voodoo, Voodoo2, and Voodoo3's
support it from a hardware aspect. If you are a PS or N64 emulator junky then
you'll know that they usually only support this 3D API... Tough luck TNT owners. As for other things,
Glide and OpenGL are almost brothers in the coding, so don't
worry about being stuck with a Glide only game (except Tribes). Gouraud Shading - although there is a
fancy word like gouraud in front of it, gouraud shading really is not anything
more than a graphics cards ability to shade 3D polygons. In 3D style 2d (if that makes sense to you)
shading is everything, in 3D style 3D it still means a lot. Graphic Aperture Size - you probably
would have never come across this term unless you were fooling around in your
BIOS. Basically it is the amount of system memory reserved for an AGP graphics board. If you have the extra memory go
ahead and bump it up a little for better performance. Graphics Pipeline - the road information
must travel to reach your monitor and/or back again. Usually starting at the CPU, then going through the motherboard and then
through a PCI or AGP slot to the graphics accelerator and back out through a cable to your
monitor. Importance? The faster the graphics pipeline the quicker stuff can be
displayed.
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Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly. Integer - if you
remember back to your algebra days you'll recall that an integer is any whole
number on the number line including their opposites and zero. Well the
definition stays the same, but the importance is different. Integers in the
computer world are handled much faster than floating-point numbers, however they aren't precise
enough for some functions in programming. Internal
Rendering - this is the amount of colors a videocard will
render an image at. It is usually set at either one of these three: 16-bit,
24-bit, or 32-bit. More colors means games will run more colorfully, yet loss in
speed and framerate usually occur. However, most games today
don't REALLY support 32-bit internal rendering, but as 32-bit games enter the
market you will want a capable 3D accelerator. I/O Connector -
the I/O stands for Input/Output. Basically an I/O connector or port refers to a
device in which other devices can be added. Two examples, and the one's we'll be
dealing with, are the AGP and PCI expansion buses. IRQ - stands for
Interrupt Request which is basically how videocards/soundcards and other devices
dependent upon the CPU 'line up' waiting to access the CPU's cycles in order to be processed. No two devices
can access the CPU on the same IRQ unless specifically designed to
work with each other, but that doesn't mean they can't get along at all! ISA - stands for
Industry Standard Architecture. This is an expansion bus very similar to AGP and PCI only in concept. It runs at about 8MHz and offers a
home for some low bandwidth devices such as soundcards, modems, or network
cards. Today ISA is almost extinct, because of the adoption of PCI by many of its former residence. That sounded
cool...
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Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly.
LAN (Local Area Network) - Low Frequency Response LAN - see Local Area Network. Level of
Detail - refers to a textures size in terms of resolution or 256x256, etc... A lower level of detail
means just that, not as much visual quality, yet also makes room for faster framerates. What do you want, stunning visuals, or
killer speed? Lighting
Effects - an effecting process used to
simulate light in a 3D environment by brightening surrounding textures and pixels near the virtual light source. Lighting effects
is one of my most loved abilities of a video accelerator because it really makes games a world of
eyecandy. Local Area
Network - basically a network or group of
computers all connected to one another within an area in which they are close to
each other. I'll probably use this term when giving an excuse for not updating
the news because I was at a Local Area Network Party. They are a hell of a lot of
fun so I suggest you check out http://www.lanparty.com if you want to know what one is
or when one is occurring in your area. Local Memory - memory attached to a specific device that it is reserved for.
Memory directly on a videocard is considered local memory because it is attached
directly to the source of which will store data in it. Local Memory is used on
an accelerator for texture storage, z-buffer storage, and other crap. Low-Frequency
Response - considered the range of sound between the 3Hz and
120Hz frequencies. That is of course if you want to get technical, most of us
refer to this as bass or the sound that really shakes stuff around you when
listening to it.
MIDI - stands for
Music Instrument Digital Interface. Basically they were predetermined sound
files that could be put together and edited in pitch, and tempo to create new
techno-sounding music. Much like the 26 letters of the alphabet can be put
together in different ways to make many different words. What's cool about MIDI
is it is fast and can be used on webpages and in games without having to take
forever to load. On the downside there isn't much diversity in sound. miniGL - a driver
specifically made for a line of cards that uses part of the instructions found
in OpenGL... This allows a card to work with or work
better with a game optimized for OpenGL. Mip-Mapping -
the process of making an image or texture into smaller images by dividing by every power
of two. For example: 1/4, 1/16, 1/32 of the original texture and so on... This is basically used to have the
ability to display a large texture in the distance even though the resolution doesn't allow it. MMX - Intel's widely
supported (sarcasm) 57 new instructions developed for their line of x86
processors and specifically used multimedia for things such as sound and video.
MMX while looking pretty is severely slow and not used much at all for
3dimensional purposes such as games. Multitexturing - see Multitexture. Multitexture -
the process of adding multiple textures to an object in the programming of a 3D game.
They can be on top of each other in such processes as bump-mapping or in conjunction with each other to form
one big 3D model, etc...
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Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly.
Obstruction Effects - Overclock Obstruction
Effects - the effecting of a sound after it passes through an
object such as a wall, box or something 'solid'. In life when a sound wave
passes through a wall its signal weakens, such being the same as in a game. An
obstructed sound usually sounds muffled or less in tone when compared with its
original sound... OpenGL - stands for
Open Graphics Language. This is a graphical API designed, produced, and maintained by Silicon
Graphics =] If you are able to choose to run a game between this API and its rival Direct3D then go for this one because I personally like
it a whole lot more, and its not because I'm Anti-Microsoft, I swear! OpenGL ICD -
(installable client driver) I really can't tell you exactly what this term means
realistically, because I personally don't see the difference between it and OpenGL in general. However, I believe it has to do with
the 'vastness' of the API. It's either vice of versa, but OpenGL ICD uses
only parts of the full OpenGL language to run things in particular such as
Quake II and so on, while the full monte OpenGL can run a lot more different things. Overclock - the
act of changing jumpers and/or voltage settings on PC hardware in attempt to
boost your hardware's performance. Now, developers of videocards, etc, make it
easy and enjoyable to overclock by integrating the ability to overclock your
card in software by changing a few numbers. However, back in my day you had to
do it manually by getting out the screwdriver and lucky static-free charm
bracelet. If you are more interested in overclocking, we should have a guide up
soon so go ahead and check it out on our FAQ page.
PCI - stands for
Peripheral Component Interface. This is basically the industry standard of bus
architecture (how internal hardware connects to you 'puter) today, even know
industry standard isn't directly in its name like ISA. Running at a steady 33MHz, and sometimes higher,
PCI is perfect for many system expansions or peripherals including soundcards,
modems, dvd decoders, 2nd generation videocards, network adapters, and the rest.
PCI will be sticking around for quite a while... Per-Pixel Mip-Mapping
- this is basically mip-mapping at its most precise variant. Generally, for
faster performance, mip-mapping effects can be made to be at an accuracy of
every other pixel, every polygon, etc. But with per-pixel mip-mapping shadows
are cast just as detailed as the object they are casting from. Perspective
Correction - probably the most important attribute to anything
3D, perspective correction is the ability to correctly display a texture from any angle. For example, if you were
looking directly at a square texture each side would appear equal (as with most
squares). However, if you turned that same square so that one end was closer to
you, it would appear skewed... Why? Well that is what sets the third dimension
apart from the 2nd, besides depth. In the real world, any object farther away
seems smaller, so if the square was turned to an angle one side would be farther
than the other allowing one to be displayed by the eye as smaller than the
other, giving it a Rhombus look. Pipeline - the
'line' where instructions will be while waiting to be processed in a
microprocessor. So in a sense the pipeline is a place everything can get jammed
in so that the processor never has something not to do, or maybe it is just the
processors own little, cute cache or memory storage area. Pixel - the smallest
'unit' of display on a monitor. After you get to a pixel, you can't divide any
farther. For more information see resolution, or call 1-888-99-PIXEL. Pixelation -
when you get too close to a texture in a game and see the actual square element,
this is considered pixelation. For example, try running your huge-ace 21"
monitor at a resolution of 640x480. Polygon - if you
recall back to the days of geometry you'll know that a polygon is any 'closed'
2D figure, well the definition stays, but the application is different. Polygons
are combined with hundreds of others to make up models in 3D engines.
There are not yet any terms to be displayed for this page. If you
have any, or think we're missing any, don't hesitate to contact us.
Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly. Raytrace - a
method of 3D rendering in which I have no idea how it works. However, I do know
that it is pretty damn realistic and is the only real solution for offering
life-like reflecting and transparency. Realtime - an
action of a computer that correspond on the same time scale with their real-life
counterpart... Don't confuse 'Realtime' with the Real-Time found in the
definition of RTS as in games. Reflective
Mapping - the reflecting technique native to raytracing which allows for extremely realistic
reflective textures of surrounding objects. Refresh Rate -
the rate at which your monitor 'blinks' or flashes a still image consecutively
to simulate motion or movement in what you do on the PC. It is measured in Hz,
and I would have to say any monitor with a refresh rate under 80Hz should not be
bought because it will hurt your eyes. On a more interesting note, that line you
see going across a computer monitor that is being shown on TV is caused by the
differential in refresh rates of TV's to computer monitors. This doesn't mean
the monitor sucks however, and the only reason why the one's in Matrix didn't do
it was because the developers put them at sync with how fast the movie camera
was rolling. Resolution - the
pixel by pixel ratio used quantitatively to show the number of pixels displayed on a monitor. For example, 640x480,
800x600, and the rest are all examples of resolution or horizontal by vertical
number of pixels in a line. Reverberation
- the natural effect of sound being bounced off many objects resulting in
continuos echo. Reverberation effects simulate this, or are unwanted defects of
sound, then a pause, then sound, then a pause when a computer slows down. For
example, listen after a large explosion in Half-Life and you will see what I
mean. RISC - stands for
Reduced Instruction Set Computing. RISC is a processor architecture designed
with a set length for instructions, which doesn't allow a maximum amount of
instructions, but is enough for simpler operations found in such things as
games. If you have a Playstation, Nintendo64, or Dreamcast, this is the style of
processor that runs these platforms.
Scan Line Interleave - S-Video SIMD - stands for
Single Instruction Multiple Data. In layman's terms, the ability of a processor
to perform the same operation or instruction on two pieces of data. This
eliminates the CPU's need to process the same instructions over and over again,
increasing performance. Intel's MMX and SSE instructions, along with AMD's
3DNow! instructions both utilize SIMD to increase Multimedia and Game
performance. Scan Line Interleave
(SLI) - I'm not exactly sure where the terms scan line
interleave came from but I do know this is the proprietary ability of 3dfx's
voodoo2's to interconnect and perform lighting fast 3D graphics. One board
handles rendering odd lines, while the other renders even lines. This not only
makes faster framerates a given, yet with combined memory allows for
higher resolutions. Back in the day a real hard-ass didn't
only have one voodoo2, he had two! Which led to the event of the word SLI guy
(pronounced sleigh or sly), well not really but it sort of
fits.
Written by: David "Spunk" Grampa
SGRAM - Stands for
Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory. This is the main type of memory found
on a graphics boards and cards. Considered to be faster than its closely related
SDRAM, this is do to its ability to 'synchronize' with the CPU for optimal performance and
speed.
Software
Rendering - The dreaded 'rendering mode' not applying to 3D accelerators. This is usually very slow and ugly when
it comes to 3D graphics, the main reason why 3D accelerators were invented or
made rather... If a game is said not to be accelerated, then it is software
rendered.
Sprite - The
absolute thirst quenching drink where image is nothing, and thirst is
everything, well how about no. This is basically a graphic that is moved about
in a 3dimensional world over other graphics, a very fine example is the aiming
crosshair in Quake2 or Half-Life, or any other game where 'you just shoot
@$%*('.
Spunk Monkey
S-Video - stands for Super-Video. I won't get
into the techno talk but basically it is a video standard found on many 3D cards
giving it the ability to hook up to camcorders, digital cameras, VCRs, TVs and
the rest.
Texel - stands for
texture element. Basically, a single pixel applied to a bitmap in 3D. Or a pixel
in a 3D world. (Similar to the difference between meteor and meteorite)
Texture - the graphical
pattern applied to 3D polygon-mapped structures. The texture wraps itself around
polygons and becomes stretched and skewed to give a 3D graphical effect.
Textures paint the beautiful 3D world we see in everyday games...
Texture
Compression - a video accelerator's ability to reduce image data size by
replacing chronic strings and lowering the color palette of a texture. This technology can
drastically increase framerate by decreasing image quality, or increase
visual quality by maintaining a constant palette. Either way implemented, it
makes things better!
Texture Mapping - the actual process of
applying a texture or bitmap
to a 3D polygon-mapped structure. Also known as texturing.
Texture Memory - a
videocard's memory dedicated specifically to storing texture maps already fused
with 3D objects.
TFT (Thin Film
Transistor) - those swank-ass ultra-thin monitors... More
technically, the essential component in LCD or thin laptop monitors.
3D Positional
Sound - examples of 3D Positional Sound include Sensaura's 3D
Positional Sound, Aureal3D, and DirectSound3D. This is a developer's
ability to program sounds to appear (or sound rather) in 3D rather than just
left or right channels (Stereo Sound). Complex mathematical algorithms written
by autistic children make it all possible =).
3DNow! Instructions - AMD's set of 21 new
instructions introduced to their line of x86 based processors to increase
floating-point (fractional) mathematical calculations. 3DNow! first appeared in
AMD's K6-II and is also licensed by Cyrix and Centaur Technology. Games that
utilize the 3DNow! instructions run faster and smoother.
Transparency - an object or materials
ability to be seen through. Transparency effects in a game include simulated
glass, water, explosions, or ice.
Trilinear Filtering - process of
applying bilinear filtering to either side of a texture causing
extreme image smoothing and reducing noticeable pixelation.
Tweak - overclocking,
cleaning, optimizing, call it what you like. Nevertheless, the act of increasing
system performance, and the concept this site was built around.
There are not yet any terms to be displayed for this page. If you have any, or think we're missing any, don't hesitate to contact us. Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly.
VGA - stands for Video
Graphics Accelerator/Array. Not the 3D ones we know of today however. VGA is the
standard that started it all for present-day color monitors, next was SVGA and
then the separate accelerators we have today.
VGA Output - The output cable or signal
capable of sending VGA video to a
monitor.
Volumetric
Lighting - the capability of light to give the effect of
passing through an actual three dimensional medium such as fog, dust, smoke,
steam, and other gasses.
Volumetric Fogging - The use of
'virtual' fog that has depth and volume to hide not yet rendered textures in the distance. Turok 2 is notorious to this,
yet I guess I would much rather see fog then textures suddenly
appear.
VRAM - stands for
Video Random Access Memory. This is memory used by many 3D devices. It's
significance lies in the fact that two separate devices can access its memory at
the same time, which is useful in 3D rendering.
vsync - Stands for Visual or Vertical
Synchronization. The Video Card's ability to synchronize buffer swaps with the
monitor's refresh
rate, obviating known visual artifacts and anomolies. Some
manufacturers allow the disabling of this feature, which will usually increase
framerate while
degrading image quality.
Wavetable - first
see MIDI, because it is basically the same thing. Wavetable
synthesis is the ability of a soundcard basically to mix common sounds in order
to reproduce more complex and interesting ones! The MIDI sounds are stored directly on the soundcard for
quick access and sound sampling reliability (in other words, it's built in and
will always sound the same).
Wavetable Synthesis - see Wavetable and/or MIDI.
Wavetracing - the ability of a game and
soundcard to make realistic sounds by 'tracing' the path in which it came. If
you hear a sound in the distance you would know where it came from, and other
stuff like that. Also wavetracing allows for correct 'echoing' effects.
There are not yet any terms to be displayed for this page. If you have any, or think we're missing any, don't hesitate to contact us. Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly.
There are not yet any terms to be displayed for this page. If you have any, or think we're missing any, don't hesitate to contact us. Response time is mostly within 24 hours, mostly.
Z-Buffer - this is basically the chunck of memory on a 3D card in which the Z value of a three dimensional point is stored. If you recall back to the days of Geometry (what is with me and saying that?), than you'll know the variables that made up a 3D point are X, Y, and Z. The importance of the Z-buffer is rather simple. It keeps track of not only where everything is in a 3D environment, but also gives a 3D card the luxury of not having to render textures that are not visible anyway (such as ones hidden behind walls). This, although seeming it wouldn't save a lot of time, really does in the end. Oh and the Z-Buffer also allows for greater accuracy in depth. An important feature when referring to 16-bit or 32-bit :)