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Find a Business or PersonAGP
-How AGP WorksYou point, you click; you drag and you drop. Files open and close in separate windows. Movies play, pop-ups pop, and video games fill the screen, immersing you in a world of 3-D graphics. This is the stuff we're used to seeing on our computers. |
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AGP: Saving RAMAGP improves the process of storing texture maps by allowing the operating system to designate RAM for use by the graphics card on the fly. This type of memory is called AGP memory or non-local video memory. Using the much more abundant and faster RAM used by the operating system to store texture maps reduces the number of maps that have to be stored on the graphics card's memory. In addition, the size of the texture map your computer is capable of processing is no longer limited to the amount of RAM on the graphics card. |
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Get Off the BusIn 1996, Intel introduced AGP as a more efficient way to deliver the streaming video and real-time-rendered 3-D graphics that were becoming more prevalent in all aspects of computing. Previously, the standard method of delivery was the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. The PCI bus is a path used to deliver information from the graphics card to the central processing unit (CPU). A bus allows multiple packets of information from different sources to travel down one path simultaneously. Information from the graphics card travels through the bus along with any other information that is coming from a device connected to the PCI. When all the information arrives at the CPU, it has to wait in line to get time with the CPU. |
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Out With the Old...AGP is built on the idea of improving the ways that PCI transports data to the CPU. Intel achieved this by addressing all of the areas where PCI transfers were causing data bottlenecks in the system. By clearing the traffic jams of data, AGP increases the speed at which machines can render graphics while using the system's resources more efficiently to reduce overall drag. Here's how: |
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PCI: Wasting RAMSpeed is not the only area where AGP has bested its predecessor. It also streamlines the process of rendering graphics by using system memory more efficiently. Any 3-D graphic you see on your computer is built by a texture map. Texture maps are like wrapping paper. Your computer takes a flat, 2-D image and wraps it around a set of parameters dictated by the graphics card to create the appearance of a 3-D image. Think of this as wrapping an invisible box with wrapping paper to show the size of the box. It is important to understand this because the creation and storage of texture maps is the main thing that drains the memory from both the graphics card and the system overall. |
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