ATI Technologies 100 437807 - Radeon X1950 Pro HD PCI Express 256MB Video Card, User Manual

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Alpha Blending
Alpha blending is used in 3D graphics to create transparent or opaque effects
for surfaces such as glass and water. Alpha is a transparency value, so the
lower the value, the more transparent the image looks. It is also used in
animations to produce such things as fading effects, where one image
gradually fades into another.
Alternate Frame Rendering
A graphical load-balancing scheme where two graphics cards are used to
render alternate frames of the display. This configuration increases the detail
of the 3D objects each card can render, as each card handles half of the total
number of frames. Essentially, each card has more time to render a scene,
delivering a noticeable increase in 3D detail. This type of graphical operation
is only available in Radeon
®
CrossFire™ graphics cards running Microsoft
®
Direct 3D
®
and OpenGL
®
games or applications.
Anisotropic Filtering
A technique that preserves the surface details of an object as it recedes into the
distance by utilizing and blending together the object’s texture maps. This
makes 3D objects appear more realistic as the detail of their surface texture is
retained in a smooth, seamless fashion on the sections that move or fade away
into the background.
Anti-aliasing
A method that smooths out the jagged edges of a curved object. A black
curved line on a white background displayed on a computer screen will have
some jaggedness along its edges due to the inherent limitations of using
discrete pixels to display the image. Anti-aliasing smooths out this jaggedness
by filling in the white spaces between the jagged edges with varying shades
of grey.
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-- Monday, October 30, 2006