Video RAM (dual-ported DRAM)

Video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM (DRAM), which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in some graphics adapters.

It was invented by F. Dill, D. Ling and R. Matick at IBM Research in 1980, with a patent issued in 1985 (US Patent 4,541,075). The first commercial use of VRAM was in a high-resolution graphics adapter introduced in 1986 by IBM for the PC/RT system, which set a new standard for graphics displays. Prior to the development of VRAM, dual-ported memory was quite expensive, limiting higher resolution bitmapped graphics to high-end workstations. VRAM improved the overall framebuffer throughput, allowing low cost, high-resolution, high-speed, color graphics. Modern GUI-based operating systems benefitted from this and thus it provided a key ingredient for proliferation of graphic user interfaces throughout the world at that time.

VRAM has two sets of data output pins, and thus two ports that can be used simultaneously. The first port, the DRAM port, is accessed by the host computer in a manner very similar to traditional DRAM. The second port, the video port, is typically read-only and is dedicated to providing a high throughput, serialized data channel for the graphics chipset.

GeForce 900 series

The GeForce 900 Series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, used in desktop and laptop PCs. It serves as the high-end introduction for the Maxwell architecture (GM-codenamed chips), named after the Scottish theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

The Maxwell microarchitecture, the successor to Kepler microarchitecture, will for the first time feature an integrated ARM CPU of its own. This will make Maxwell GPUs more independent from the main CPU according to Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Nvidia expects three major things from the Maxwell architecture: improved graphics capabilities, simplified programming as well as better energy-efficiency compared to the GeForce 700 Series and GeForce 600 Series

Maxwell was announced in September 2010. The first GeForce consumer-class products based on the Maxwell architecture were released in early 2014. Nvidia is expected to release the Maxwell-powered Tesla accelerator cards as well as Quadro professional graphics cards based on this architecture in late 2014. Eventually, Maxwell architecture will be used for mobile application processors that belong to the Erista family of Tegra SoCs.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, on 18 November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows. The game is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas's open countryside and fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

The game is played from either a first-person or third-person view and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

Video card

A video card (also called a video adapter, display card, graphics card, graphics board, display adapter, graphics adapter or frame buffer) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display (such as a computer monitor). Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics. Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards, abbreviated as AIBs, with the word "graphics" usually omitted.

History

Standards such as MDA, CGA, HGC, Tandy, PGC, EGA, VGA, MCGA, 8514 or XGA were introduced from 1982 to 1990 and supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers.

Virtually all current video cards are built with either AMD-sourced or Nvidia-sourced graphics chips. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors (multi-monitor). Video cards also have sound card capabilities to output sound along with the video for connected TVs or monitors with integrated speakers.