CSE Graphics Processing Unit
CSE Graphics Processing Unit
org
A
Seminar report
On
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank respected Mr…….. and Mr. ……..for giving me such a
wonderful opportunity to expand my knowledge for my own branch and giving me
guidelines to present a seminar report. It helped me a lot to realize of what we study for.
Secondly, I would like to thank my parents who patiently helped me as i went through
my work and helped to modify and eliminate some of the irrelevant or un-necessary
stuffs.
Thirdly, I would like to thank my friends who helped me to make my work more
organized and well-stacked till the end.
Next, I would thank Microsoft for developing such a wonderful tool like MS Word. It
helped my work a lot to remain error-free.
Last but clearly not the least, I would thank The Almighty for giving me strength to
complete my report on time.
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Preface
I have made this report file on the topic Graphics Processing Unit; I have tried my best
to elucidate all the relevant detail to the topic to be included in the report. While in the
beginning I have tried to give a general view about this topic.
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
6. COMPONENTS OF GPU
9. TYPES OF GPU
10. GEFORCE4
11. GEFORCE4 TI
12. GEFORCE4 MX
13. GEFORCE4 GO
14. CONCLUSION
15. 3D GLOSSARY
16. REFERENCES
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INTRODUCTION
WHAT’S A GPU????
However, the GPU is not just for playing 3D-intense videogames or for those
who create graphics (sometimes referred to as graphics rendering or content-creation)
but is a crucial component that is critical to the PC's overall system speed. In order to
fully appreciate the graphics card's role it must first be understood.
Many synonyms exist for Graphics Processing Unit in which the popular
one being the graphics card .It’s also known as a video card, video accelerator, video
adapter, video board, graphics accelerator, or graphics adapter.
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When IBM introduced the Video Graphics Array (VGA) in 1987, a new
graphics standard came into being. A VGA display could support up to 256 colors
(out of a possible 262,144-color palette) at resolutions up to 720x400. Perhaps the
most interesting difference between VGA and the preceding formats is that VGA was
analog, whereas displays had been digital up to that point. Going from digital to
analog may seem like a step backward, but it actually provided the ability to vary the
signal for more possible combinations than the strict on/off nature of digital.
Over the years, VGA gave way to Super Video Graphics Array (SVGA).
SVGA cards were based on VGA, but each card manufacturer added resolutions and
increased color depth in different ways. Eventually, the Video Electronics
Standards Association (VESA) agreed on a standard implementation of SVGA that
provided up to 16.8 million colors and 1280x1024 resolution. Most graphics cards
available today support Ultra Extended Graphics Array (UXGA). UXGA can
support a palette of up to 16.8 million colors and resolutions up to 1600x1200 pixels.
Even though any card you can buy today will offer higher colors and resolution
than the basic VGA specification, VGA mode is the de facto standard for graphics
and is the minimum on all cards. In addition to including VGA, a graphics card must
be able to connect to your computer. While there are still a number of graphics cards
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The illustration above shows how the various buses connect to the CPU.
PCI can connect up to five external components. Each of the five connectors
for an external component can be replaced with two fixed devices on the
motherboard. The PCI bridge chip regulates the speed of the PCI bus independently
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of the CPU's speed. This provides a higher degree of reliability and ensures that PCI-
hardware manufacturers know exactly what to design for.
PCI cards use 47 pins to connect (49 pins for a mastering card, which can
control the PCI bus without CPU intervention). The PCI bus is able to work with so
few pins because of hardware multiplexing, which means that the device sends more
than one signal over a single pin. Also, PCI supports devices that use either 5 volts or
3.3 volts. PCI slots are the best choice for network interface cards (NIC), 2-D video
cards, and other high-bandwidth devices. On some PCs, PCI has completely
superseded the old ISA expansion slots.
Although Intel proposed the PCI standard in 1991, it did not achieve popularity
until the arrival of Windows 95 (in 1995). This sudden interest in PCI was due to the
fact that Windows 95 supported a feature called Plug and Play (PnP). PnP means
that you can connect a device or insert a card into your computer and it is
automatically recognized and configured to work in your system. Intel created the
PnP standard and incorporated it into the design for PCI. But it wasn't until several
years later that a mainstream operating system, Windows 95, provided system-level
support for PnP. The introduction of PnP accelerated the demand for computers with
PCI.
The need for streaming video and real-time-rendered 3-D games requires an
even faster throughput than that provided by PCI. In 1996, Intel debuted the
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AGP has 32 lines for multiplexed address and data. There are an additional 8
lines for sideband addressing. Local video memory can be expensive and it cannot be
used for other purposes by the OS when unneeded by the graphics of the running
applications. The graphics controller needs fast access to local video memory for
screen refreshes and various pixel elements including Z-buffers, double buffering,
overlay planes, and textures.
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For these reasons, programmers can always expect to have more texture
memory available via AGP system memory. Keeping textures out of the frame buffer
allows larger screen resolution, or permits Z-buffering for a given large screen size.
As the need for more graphics intensive applications continues to scale upward, the
amount of textures stored in system memory will increase. AGP delivers these
textures from system memory to the graphics controller at speeds sufficient to make
system memory usable as a secondary texture store.
AGP Transfers
AGP provides two modes for the graphics controller to directly access texture
maps in system memory: pipelining and sideband addressing. Using Pipe mode,
AGP overlaps the memory or bus access times for a request ("n") with the issuing of
following requests ("n+1"..."n+2"... etc.). In the PCI bus, request "n+1" does not
begin until the data transfer of request "n" finishes.
With sideband addressing (SBA), AGP uses 8 extra "sideband" address lines which
allow the graphics controller to issue new addresses and requests simultaneously
while data continues to move from previous requests on the main 32 data/address
lines. Using SBA mode improves efficiency and reduces latencies.
AGP Specifications
The current PCI bus supports a data transfer rate up to 132 MB/s, while AGP
(at 66MHz) supports up to 533 MB/s! AGP attains this high transfer rate due to it's
ability to transfer data on both the rising and falling edges of the 66MHz clock
The AGP slot typically provides performance which is 4 to 8 times faster than
the PCI slots inside your computer.
COMPONENTS OF GPU
Graphics Processor
The graphics processor is the brains of the card, and is typically one of three
configurations:
Graphics co-processor: A card with this type of processor can handle all of the
graphics chores without any assistance from the computer's CPU. Graphics co-
processors are typically found on high-end video cards.
Graphics accelerator: In this configuration, the chip on the graphics card renders
graphics based on commands from the computer's CPU. This is the most common
configuration used today.
Frame buffer: This chip simply controls the memory on the card and sends
information to the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) . It does no processing of the
image data and is rarely used anymore.
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Memory – The type of RAM used on graphics cards varies widely, but the most
popular types use a dual-ported configuration. Dual-ported cards can write to one
section of memory while it is reading from another section, decreasing the time it
takes to refresh an image.
Graphics BIOS – Graphics cards have a small ROM chip containing basic
information that tells the other components of the card how to function in relation to
each other. The BIOS also performs diagnostic tests on the card's memory and input/
output (I/O) to ensure that everything is functioning correctly.
Display Connector – Graphics cards use standard connectors. Most cards use the 15-
pin connector that was introduced with Video Graphics Array (VGA).
Local Bus
Local
Memory Clock
Graphics Processor Generator
AGP/PCI Interface
Many new graphics chips now have accelerated Transform and Lighting
(T&L) unit, which takes a 3D scene's geometry and transforms it into different
coordinate spaces. It also performs lighting calculations, again relieving the CPU
from these math-intensive tasks.
Following the T&L unit on the chip is the triangle setup engine. It takes a
scene's transformed geometry and prepares it for the next stages of rendering by
converting the scene into a form that the pixel engine can then process. The pixel
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engine applies assigned texture values to each pixel. This gives each pixel the correct
color value so that it appears to have surface texture and does not look like a flat,
smooth object. After a pixel has been rendered it must be checked to see whether it is
visible by checking the depth value, or Z value.
A Z check unit performs this process by reading from the Z-buffer to see
if there are any other pixels rendered to the same location where the new pixel
will be rendered. If another pixel is at that location, it compares the Z value of
the existing pixel to that of the new pixel. If the new pixel is closer to the view
camera, it gets written to the frame buffer. If it's not, it gets discarded. After the
complete scene is drawn into the frame buffer the RAMDAC converts this
digital data into analog that can be given to the monitor for display.
There are many factors that affect the performance of a GPU. Some of the
factors that are directly visible to a user are given below.
Fill Rate:
It is defined as the number of pixels or texels (textured pixels) rendered per
second by the GPU on to the memory . It shows the true power of the GPU.
Modern GPUs have fill rates as high as 3.2 billion pixels. The fill rate of a GPU
can be increased by increasing the clock given to it.
Memory Bandwidth:
It is the data transfer speed between the graphics chip and its local frame
buffer. More bandwidth usually gives better performance with the image to be
rendered is of high quality and at very high resolution.
Memory Management:
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The performance of the GPU also depends on how efficiently the memory is
managed, because memory bandwidth may become the only bottle neck if not
managed properly.
Now lets see how far GPUs have come as far as performance is concerned.
900
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500 Operations(Millions)/se
400 c
300
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0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
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60
50
40
No of Transistors in
30 Millions
20
10
0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
TYPES OF GPUS…
1. Those that can handle all of the graphics processes without any assistance
from the computer's CPU. They are typically found on high-end workstations.
These are mainly used for Digital Content Creation like 3D animation as it
supports a lot of 3D functions.
Some of them are……
Quadro series from NVIDIA.
Wildcat series from 3D Labs.
FireGL series from ATI.
Today’s GPU can do what was hoped for and beyond. In the last year a giant
leap have been made in the GPU technology. The maximum amount of RAM that can
be found on a graphics card has jumped from 16MB to a whopping 128MB. The
premier company in GPU manufacturing ATI,who has held the position past couple
of years has given way to nVidia , whose new ground breaking technology is leaving
ATI to follow.
GEFORCE4
Chip Architecture
The LMA II
In the upper left hand corner lies the LMA II. The LMA II controls the flow of
data from the chip to the GPU's memory (the DDR memory on the graphics card). It
controls how much data is sent to the memory and how fast it is sent to the memory.
The Accuview AA Engine, located to the left and in the middle of the chip,
does the antialiasing for the GPU.
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At the bottom of the GeForce4 chip and to the very left is the interface unit.
This simply determines what interface (2X or 4X AGP) the computer has, and adjusts
to comply with it.
At the bottom of the chip and to the left-center is the texture unit. This unit is
dedicated to processing textures that must be rendered.
In the center to the right of the chip is the display unit. This unit is simple
and its only job is to determine the optimal display resolution for the display being
used. It also determines what type of display it is and optimizes its performance.
In the bottom right corner of the chip is the 2D/Video/HDVP unit. This part
of the chip is dedicated to all those tasks that don't require 3D rendering. These tasks
include movies, 2D pictures, 2D games and almost any other program that doesn't
have 3D graphics
nView Technology:
Multi-desktop tools
Multi-desktop integration
Full featured interface including explorer browser with birds-eye views of
desktops
Toolbar control available as well for those needing a streamlined, low real-
estate interface
Window management
Individual application control
Window & dialog repositioning
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Application management
Transparency & colored transparency window options
Extends functionality of all applications
Pop- up menu control
GEFORCE4 TI
This chart shows comparison of performances of GeForce4 Ti 4600 and its predecessor in FPS.
GEFORCE4 MX
Performance comparisons
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GEFORCE4 GO
CONCLUSION
From the introduction of the first 3D accelerator from 3dfx in 1996 these
units have come a long way to be truly called a “Graphics Processing Unit”. So it is
not a wonder that this piece of hardware is often referred to as an exotic product as far
as computer peripherals are concerned. By observing the current pace at which work
is going on in developing GPUs we can surely come to a conclusion that we will be
able to see better and faster GPUs in the near future.
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REFERENCES
1. www.howstuffworks.com
2. www.tomshardware.com
3. www.intel.com
4. www.nvidia.com
5. www.extremetech.com
6. www.pcworld.com