Increasingly, however, the graphics
card is no longer a "card" in the strictest
sense, but is an integrated section of the motherboard
dedicated to the same purpose. Integrated-graphics-displays
usually have inferior 3D performance compared with
dedicated graphics cards (due to using cheaper chipsets
and sharing system memory rather than using dedicated
memory); those who require high performance still
prefer non-integrated solutions. Integrated graphics
displays have gradually become more common since the
mid 1990s as advancing technology makes them more
practical. Anyone using their computer for office
tasks, web browsing, email and such things will be
fine with an integrated graphics chip.
The most powerful graphics hardware,
usually geared towards 3D graphics for games, is still
card-based. Their processing engines are sometimes
called GPUs (graphics processing units). The longterm
goal of graphics cards manufacturers (and game developers)
appears to be realtime photorealistic rendering. New
products and technologies are often touted to provide
"Hollywood quality" - 3dfx used claims of
movie-quality effects to promote their Voodoo 5 cards
with T-Buffer technology, allowing motion blur, depth
of field and full screen anti-aliasing effects. nVidia
talked about "The dawn of cinematic computing"
when introducing its GeForce FX chip with the Dawn
technology demo. Others use the new technology for
more impressive, but unrealistic rendering, such as
cel shading.
Conversely, sometimes 3D-graphics
capabilities are not relevant to the choice of high-performance
graphics card; 2D graphics and fine visual-quality
fill specialised niches in areas such as medical imaging.
The original hardware accelerated
3D renderers come on a board that was used in conjunction
with a normal graphics card. The card would add 3D
graphics to the 2D rendering from the graphics card
via a pass-through cable. The first consumer-level
3D hardware was the Voodoo by the now defunct 3dfx.
When choosing your own graphics solution,
consider what you will use it for. 3D cards for model
rendering in art and animation use different cards
than those used for games. nVidia's "Quadro"
series, which can cost upwards of a thousand dollars,
is geared toward rendering and 3D animation, while
the GeForce series is meant for gaming and actually
performs much better at a lower price. A digital or
analog monitor may be connected to the graphics card
via a DVI connector or VGA connector respectively.
