Nvidia's TurboCache technology is a method of allowing video cards more available framebuffermemory by using both onboard video memory and main system memory. Main memory is accessed using the high-bandwidth PCI-Express bus.
TurboCache was developed as a means to provide a better cost/performance ratio by reducing the amount of memory modules on the video card. According to Nvidia, a GeForce 6200 with TurboCache will perform about four times better than the Intel GMA 900. As with integrated graphics, the operating system may report a lower amount of main memory than is physically present when main memory is used.
When TurboCache was introduced on the GeForce 6200 with TurboCache, there was confusion over how much local memory a buyer could expect from the TurboCache enabled video card. This figure could lie between 16-128 MiB, with Nvidia listing only total memory from both video memory and main memory. Eventually, NVIDIA included only video memory sizes on marketing and packaging.
While TC can improve 3D quality in games using a great deal of video memory for texture rendering, performance of games utilizing a large percent of system RAM (such as EA Games' Battlefield series and their mods that typically consume 512 MB-1 GB RAM) can suffer dramatically on systems with 1 GB RAM or below. Some users of such setups have attempted to disable TC.[citation needed] Such an option is not supported by NVIDIA's official drivers but can be accomplished using a registry modification for Windows XP users or a configuration file modification for X.Org Server users.
A video card with TurboCache typically is slower in 3D benchmarks than a similar video card which has its own discrete video memory.
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is a parallel expansion card standard, designed for attaching a video card to a computer system to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. It was originally designed as a successor to PCI-type connections for video cards. Since 2004, AGP was progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express (PCIe), which is serial, as opposed to parallel; by mid-2008, PCI Express cards dominated the market and only a few AGP models were available, with GPU manufacturers and add-in board partners eventually dropping support for the interface in favor of PCI Express.
A graphics card is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a display device such as a monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to integrated graphics processor on the motherboard or the CPU. A graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs the necessary computations is the main component in a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to erroneously refer to the graphics card as a whole.
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by Nvidia and marketed for the performance market. As of the GeForce 40 series, there have been eighteen iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market, and later diversification of the product line covered all tiers of the PC graphics market, ranging from cost-sensitive GPUs integrated on motherboards, to mainstream add-in retail boards. Most recently, GeForce technology has been introduced into Nvidia's line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets.
The GeForce FX or "GeForce 5" series is a line of graphics processing units from the manufacturer Nvidia.
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit initially designed to accelerate computer graphics and image processing. After their initial design, GPUs were found to be useful for non-graphic calculations involving embarrassingly parallel problems due to their parallel structure. Other non-graphical uses include the training of neural networks and cryptocurrency mining.
Released in August 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration. Its name is an acronym for Real-time Interactive Video and Animation accelerator.
The GeForce 6 series is Nvidia's sixth generation of GeForce graphic processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce 6 family introduced PureVideo post-processing for video, SLI technology, and Shader Model 3.0 support.
Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is the brand name for a now discontinued multi-GPU technology developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output. SLI is a parallel processing algorithm for computer graphics, meant to increase the available processing power.
Dell XPS is a line of consumer-oriented high-end laptop and desktop computer series manufactured by Dell since 1993.
The Intel740, or i740, is a 350 nm graphics processing unit using an AGP interface released by Intel on February 12, 1998. Intel was hoping to use the i740 to popularize the Accelerated Graphics Port, while most graphics vendors were still using PCI. Released to enormous fanfare, the i740 proved to have disappointing real-world performance, and sank from view after only a few months on the market. Some of its technology lived on in the form of Intel Extreme Graphics, and the concept of an Intel produced graphics processor lives on in the form of Intel Graphics Technology and Intel Arc.
The GeForce 7 series is the seventh generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units. This was the last series available on AGP cards.
The ATI Rage is a series of graphics chipsets developed by ATI Technologies offering graphical user interface (GUI) 2D acceleration, video acceleration, and 3D acceleration developed by ATI Technologies. It is the successor to the ATI Mach series of 2D accelerators.
The G400 is a video card made by Matrox, released in September 1999. The graphics processor contains a 2D GUI, video, and Direct3D 6.0 3D accelerator. Codenamed "Toucan", it was a more powerful and refined version of its predecessor, the G200.
The GeForce 8 series is the eighth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. The third major GPU architecture developed by Nvidia, Tesla represents the company's first unified shader architecture.
HyperMemory was a brand for ATI's method of using the motherboard's main system RAM as part of or all of the video card's framebuffer memory on their line of Radeon video cards and motherboard chipsets. It relies on new fast data transfer mechanisms within PCI Express.
The GeForce 9 series is the ninth generation of Nvidia's GeForce series of graphics processing units, the first of which was released on February 21, 2008. Products are based on a slightly repolished Tesla microarchitecture, adding PCIe 2.0 support, improved color and z-compression, and built on a 65 nm process, later using 55 nm process to reduce power consumption and die size.
This glossary of computer hardware terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to computer hardware, i.e. the physical and structural components of computers, architectural issues, and peripheral devices.
The IdeaPad Y series was a consumer range of laptops produced by Lenovo, first announced in 2008. They were marketed as premium high performance laptops for multimedia and gaming, as part of the IdeaPad line.
The GeForce 900 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 700 series and serving as the high-end introduction to the Maxwell microarchitecture, named after James Clerk Maxwell. They are produced with TSMC's 28 nm process.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
