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

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Aspect
A group of related features in ATI’s Catalyst
®
Control Center software. For
example, the Color aspect clusters together controls that handles gamma,
brightness, contrast, and other features relating directly to the display of color.
Similarly, the 3D aspect provides a set of related controls dealing with such
features as anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, mipmap details levels, and
more.
Aspect Ratio
The proportions of a display are expressed as a ratio of its width and height.
Common ratios include 4:3 for TVs and CRTs, 5:4 for LCDs, and 16:9 for
widescreen displays.
ATI Overdrive
ATI Overdrive maximizes the performance of the GPU by dynamically
altering its speed to an optimal level depending on usage. An on-chip thermal
sensor constantly monitors the temperature of the GPU, allowing for
maximum clock speed to be maintained while avoiding overheating.
Back Buffer
A type of offscreen memory used to provide smooth video and 2D graphics
acceleration. This technique uses two frame buffers, so the process is often
referred to as “double-buffering.” While the contents of one buffer are
displayed, a second buffer, called the “back” buffer, holds the frame being
worked on. In this way, users will only see complete, smooth frames displayed
onscreen.
Bilinear Filtering
This filtering method reduces the blockiness caused when zooming into a 3D
surface that is at a right angle to the viewer. A newspaper photo examined
closely enough will show that the picture is made up of tiny dots. If the photo
was enlarged it would start to look “blocky” and less distinct. This is also a
problem for computer-generated images, especially for surface details.
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