Radeon Performance In Windows Vista
What an amazing game! It thrilled me much. It was in
my friend’s system, we played a game of car racing.
It was totally 3D. I asked my friend, why in my system
the same game was not coming off well. He then asked
me what graphics card I have in my system. I said, I
don’t know. I started thinking "what is graphics
card, what are its uses, what is GPU?"What is special about radeon graphics card?
Ok... Before talking about Radeon GPU in Windows Vista,
let us start the topic by seeing what is meant by GPU,
how GPU’s started, etc.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
GPU in computer terminology stands for Graphics Processing
Unit. It is sometimes called as Visual Processing Unit.
This is a graphics rendering device, which help in creation
of images. In technical terms, it is a specialized chip
dedicated for rendering 2D and 3D images in a computer
system. This chip helps to reduce load on the CPU, giving
good, high quality images at the same time.
History and Development of GPU
The GPU was born during the late 1970’s. The
chips had no shape drawing support. It was designed
to reduce the load on the main processor, there by enabling
good speed in computer systems. The 1980’s saw
the development of much better GPU’s. These GPU’s
were used to display 2D images, basic shapes which included
drawing of circles, rectangles, triangles, arc etc.
There was no support for 3D graphics. As a result of
Windows 9x release, 1990s saw the release of some good
GPU cards with built in memory. These GPU cards enabled
one to install and play high quality games, videos and
other high quality programs, which included real time
3D graphics. This revolutionized the idea of making
high quality and higher capacity graphics cards.
The advancement in technology saw the development of
DirectX, a popular programming API interface today.
Direct3D 5.0 became the first API (Application Programming
Interface) to dominate the market in the field of gaming,
3D graphics. Due to growth in advance technologies like
VCD, DVD and internet, 3D Graphics Acceleration cards
started dominating the market. Today we have many 3D
Accelerator cards available in the market.
Radeon Technology
Radeon is a brand name for Graphics Processing Units
which are manufactured by ATI (Array Technologies Incorporated)
Technologies. They came into existence in 2000, and
are successor to the GPU’s from Rage line.
They are differentiated by DirectX software which divides
them into four categories. They fall into categories
ranging from DirectX 7.0 to 10.0. R100 was the first
ATI’s graphic processor which was introduced in
2000 which had full capability of DirectX 7.0. R100
gave a good bandwidth and high frequency accelerations
through HyperZ technology.
Further developments in ATI saw the release of R200
series, which included Programmable shader technology.
This GPU had capability functions of DirectX 8.0. It
also supported Pixel Shader 1.4, the most flexible shader
model available at that time. The GPU R300 made ATI
technology a prominent player among others in the market.
It included support for DirectX 9.0 and pixel shading
technology. R420 was the next to follow in the DirectX
9.0 category which included its 9.0b features and functionality.
It also included evolutionary step in programming with
implementation of shader model 2b. The next one in the
same category is R520, which included the features of
DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 3.0 support.
This series gave a number of enhancements which included
the feature of rendering of floating point, necessary
for high dynamic range rendering with anti aliasing.
The first commercial desktop GPU which supports Direct3D
10.0 produced by ATI is R600. It also employs the unified
shader technology. This is the latest series that is
added to the list of ATI GPU’s.
Unlike NVIDIA, ATI make use of Pulse Width Modulation
(PWM) to control speed of the fan. The speed of the
fan is controlled by pulsing the power supply than lowering
the voltage. As a result, the fan produces a clicking
sound when it rotates at lower speed.
CATALYST – Driver Package of Radeon
The driver package for ATI’s Radeon is called
as CATALYST. This package was developed after the release
of Radeon 8500. It was designed to match the NVIDIA’s
the universal Detonator driver package. This Catalyst
driver development program has promised monthly updates
of performance enhancements within the driver software,
bug fixes, and latest improvements to the driver software.
This included the Catalyst Control center, an interface
for manipulating the various functions of hardware such
as 3D previews, monitor controls, video options, and
many more stuffs allowing the user to see the difference
after downloading and updating the driver.
The old control panel interface within the windows
has been discontinued from Catalyst version 5.13. The
catalyst package can now be downloaded in smaller pieces,
by non-board band users. For example, the display driver
can be downloaded alone without the need to download
the entire package.
Requirement of Updated Radeon driver for Vista
One of the problems with Windows Vista and higher
operating system are that some old Radeon or any older
device needs updated drivers. For those Radeon devices
without the CATALYST software, one needs to check the
Manufacturer’s web site for the availability of
the updated drivers.
If not, the device may not be used any further, in
spite of its working conditions. Some drivers may work,
but not fully compatible with Windows Vista. If the
drivers for Windows XP are available then it may work
on Windows Vista. For more details on Drivers for Windows
Vista, one needs to check Microsoft’s website
www.microsoft.com.
The advancements in technology will see the developments
in the field of GPU’s. One need to wait and see
what will be the latest GPU that is going to be released
during 2007, which will enhance graphic performance
on latest Windows Vista operating system. |
