Tips on purchasing video graphics board

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Some time ago, my colleague, Jim Scharf, wrote an excellent article on computer monitors.

He also provided us with several tips on choosing the best one.

Now, assuming you already have a good monitor for your PC, preferably a 17 inch one, it's probably time to add a Windows graphics accelerator card.

A Windows graphics accelerator card has its own processor that frees the CPU from the tasks of handling the pixels on your screen.

Consequently, the CPU can work faster on the real processing activities.

Therefore, a good monitor without a good graphics accelerator board is like a Porsche Carrerra with the engine of a VW Beetle.

Here's the check list to make sure you also get the 270 HP, 3.6-liter flat-six engine for your Carrerra:

1. The graphics accelerator card should be capable of giving a refresh rate of at least 70 Hz. At this level, the display is virtually flicker-free and the white page on your monitor will look more like the real paper than the neon lamp, and it is much less taxing to your eyes;

2. It has to have at least 1 MB VRAM so that you can display up to 256 color simultaneously at the high resolution of 1024 by 768.

Just for comparison, your standard VGA subsystem can display only 16 different color at the same time. You'll need up to 3 MB VRAM if you want to display 24 bit true colors--16.7 million different colors--on a super VGA monitor.

Life is indeed more exciting when it is colorful, right?

3. You should be able to get the latest version of software driver. This may actually be the most important consideration in choosing this card.

Earlier versions of drivers are typically buggy and show mediocre performance, while their later revisions are almost always more efficient and work faster.

4. You should choose from most popular graphic card manufac turers to make sure that you'll get an update to the software driver as it becomes available.

Most graphic card makers now provide you with drivers for OS/2, too, and this may speed up mass adoption of this operating system.

Some top graphic card makers are Diamond, ATI, Hercules, Matrox, and Radius.

5. Finally, you should make sure that the type of graphics card matches your bus type. If you have a VESA local bus system, for instance, you might want to choose Diamond Viper VLB. But if you have an ISA bus, your choice might be Diamond Stealth Pro.