The following are some recommended steps to take if a video card or video adapter will not boot or operate properly in your system:

• Ensure that the monitor's brightness and contrast controls are properly adjusted.
• Check to see if your monitor is properly connected to the card. Be sure your monitor's pins are not bent or otherwise broken
• Turn the system on and confirm that the power supply is operating properly; i.e., that the fan operates and the system power light turns on.
• Be sure you video settings are not set too high for the monitor. Ex. if you monitor can only handle a resolution of 800 x 600 do not try to set you display settings for 1024 x 768

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Q1 Why do we need 3D graphics capability in our PC?

Answer 3D technology is becoming increasingly important (and common) not only in games, but also in other applications such as VRML, which allows 3D scene descriptions in Web applications. 3D technology is used for image editing, modeling, and an increasing number of in home and business applications. In games, as well as other applications, 3D acceleration not only allows better visual qualities and more realistic scenery attributes than software alone, but it also allows a higher frame rate, which translates into a more interactive experience for the end user.

Q2 What does “Rendering Engine” mean?

Answer “Rendering Engine” generically applies to the part of the graphics engine that draws 3D primitives, usually triangles. In most implementations, the rendering engine is responsible for interpolation of edges and “filling in” the triangle.

Q3 What does the set-up engine do in a graphics controller?

Answer A set-up engine allows drivers to pass triangles in the form of raw vertex information; whereas, most common designs force triangles to be pre-processed for the rendering engine in terms of delta values for edges, color, and texture.

Q4 Why does a 3D graphics chip need to have both a rendering engine and a setup engine?

Answer Any “3D application”, a game, VRML, or modeling package, can benefit from 3D rendering. This is especially true of applications that use texturing extensively, because texturing and texture filtering are very intensive operations at the pixel level in terms of CPU operations and demands for memory bandwidth. Without a set-up engine in a graphics controller, the CPU has to calculate the delta values for edges, color, and textures; the drivers need to handle ten (10) times more extensive data. This results in slower 3D pipeline operations between the CPU and the graphics controller.

Q5 If we use powerful CPUs, such as a Pentium™ 200, can a standard 2D graphics card achieve 3D performance?

Answer Yes and no. Software rendering can take advantage of “tricks” learned by force of necessity through years of trial and error. With such stratagems, the speed of software rendering for simple scenes can approach that of low-level hardware 3D rendering. On the other hand, as scenes become more complex (or frame sizes become larger), there are conflicts between using the CPU for high-level game logic, geometry, lighting, and rendering, all of which increase their demands. No current CPU or system can perform advanced quality-enhancements (bilinear filtering and alpha blending) in real time. Even general case texture mapping with RGB lighting is too much for the current CPU generation.

Q6 What does “software 3D” mean ?

Answer Software 3D is generally used to mean using non-specific (2D) hardware in conjunction with the CPU to render for 3D applications. Some of these techniques allow usable 3D applications when high-powered and/or MMX™-equipped CPU's are employed along with special-case software optimization techniques. As stated above, SW 3D can achieve credible results with today's (software optimized) applications, but the rising popularity of good 3D hardware at the consumer price level is inexorably compelling the public to expect hardware level scene enhancements and frame rates.

Q7 What is “SGRAM”?

Answer Synchronous Graphics Random Access memory (SGRAM) is a new and improved type of memory, custom-designed for graphics use.

Q8 What is the advantage of SGRAM as compared to ordinary DRAM?

Answer SGRAM is now capable of running at much higher speeds than Fast Page Mode or EDO DRAM. Also, SGRAM is able to execute a small number of frequently executed operations, such as buffer clears, specific to graphics applications, independently of the controller.