Diamond Multimedia Radeon 9600 PRO User Manual

Radeon® 9600 PRO

PC & Mac Edition

User’s Guide

P/N 137-40864-10

iii

Table of Content s

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

System Requirements

External Connections

Related Documentation

The README file summarizes the latest product revisions. Click the

README icon on the installation disk to open this file.

Detailed help and feature descriptions are available directly in ATI

Displays.

Multimedia Features

Your Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition turns your Mac computer

into a 3D and 2D graphics powerhouse. Use your new graphics accelerator

card to:

• Enjoy true-color 32-bit 2D or 3D graphics up to 2560 x 1600.

• Watch full screen, full motion, DVD quality video using the

Apple® DVD Player or QuickTime® playback acceleration.

• Output your Mac’s display to digital flat panels and digital

projectors.

• Output to analog displays and projectors.

The following information describes these features in more detail and

suggests ways you can optimize your machine to get the most out of your

card.

Viewing 3D Graphics

Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition’s 3D acceleration features support

the following advanced 3D graphics capabilities:

• 4 pixel pipeline architecture.

• 128 bit memory interface.

• Hardware accelerated vertex and pixel shaders.

• 1.6 Gigapixels per second fill rate.

• transform rate of 200 million vertices per second.

• 8.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth.

TV Out Support 3

In addition, the Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition offers the

following graphics technologies:

SmoothVision™ 2.1 is an antialiasing solution that raises the bar for image

quality using programmable multi-sampling methods to post-process

graphics before they are displayed.

SmartShader™ 2.0 contains advanced vertex and pixel-shading

capabilities. A shader is a small program that runs on the GPU and

describes how an image should be rendered. Vertex shaders manipulate the

individual polygons that make up 3D objects, and pixel shaders operate on

the individual pixels that fill in these polygons to create a visible image.

SmartShader™ 2.0 is designed to alleviate the resource constraints of

earlier shader hardware, paving the way for more complex, detailed, and

realistic shader effects in applications requiring high-performance 3D

rendering.

HyperZ™ III makes Z-buffer bandwidth usage more efficient by

decreasing the amount of information sent to the frame buffer at higher

resolutions.

Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition only displays 3D graphics in

thousands and millions of colors. If you set your display to 256 colors, this

will affect Finder™, OpenGL®, Quartz® Extreme, and QuickTime®

acceleration.

TV Out Support

The Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition supports TV Out by using the

optional Apple® G5 DVI-I to Video Adapter. For more information see

your local Apple® reseller.

4 TV Out Support

Introduction 5

CHAPTER 2:

ATI Displays Control Panel

Introduction

The ATI Displays control panel provides access to the advanced features of

that the Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition has to offer.

Open the ATI Displays control panel

Open the Apple® System Preferences.

Click the ATI Displays icon.

Click the Hard Disk icon.

Open Applications folder.

Open Utilities folder.

Open ATI Utilities folder.

Open ATI Displays.

For detailed instructions on how to set up and use these features, refer to

the built-in help feature, which can be accessed through the ATI Displays

control panel.

6 ATI Displays Control Panel

ATI Displays Control Panel

Display Info dialog shows the current display settings for the display.

Detect Displays button detects all connected displays. This feature is

useful when a second VGA monitor is connected to your graphics adapter.

Detect Displays removes the need to restart your computer.

Note: Your display will momentarily go blank when all devices are

being detected.

The Profile dialog presents information on the specific Radeon® graphics

card and video driver installed in your computer. Even if ATI Displays

cannot identify your ATI product it will still provide display configuration,

driver version and other related information. A warning dialog will display

if no ATI product is installed in your computer.

The Support dialog provides an internet link to ATI Technologies’ web

site.

Click Create Apple® System Profiler Report to generate a detailed

report of the computer’s installed hardware and software.

Advanced Display Options

Advanced Display Options adds even more functionality, giving you

complete control over your display.

Advanced Display Options 7

To access the Advanced features open the ATI Displays control panel and

click the ADVANCED button.

VersaVision™ Tab

Use the VersaVision™ tab to rotate your display while maintaining the full

feature set of other ATI 2D and 3D technologies. ATI’s hardware

accelerated display rotation and scaling technology provides rotation left or

right by 90 degrees or turn it upside down to a full 180 degree rotation.

Use Relative Rotation to rotate the contents of your display relative to its

current position. Hovering the mouse cursor over a direction button will

show you a preview of the change. Clicking the desired rotation button will

cause the display to refresh and rotate.

Full 3D support is maintained regardless of rotation selected.

Use the Default button to reset Relative Rotation and return your display

to its normal orientation.

Use the Revert button to undo all changes and reset the desktop to the

original state or last known good setting.

Display Scaling

Use this option to control the display output size without affecting the

desktop resolution of your display.

8 Advanced Display Options

If the computer desktop, toolbar or dock exceeds the physical size of your

display select Standard Underscan (87%) in the Desktop Size drop down

menu.

You can also create a unique desktop size by selecting Custom and

adjusting the slider to the desired setting.

Advanced Display Options 9

Display Control Tab

Force Single Display Operation, when using a dual display video card,

causes all display modes to appear as a single list of supported resolutions

in the Apple® Displays Properties.

Only one display is on when this feature is enabled. The default setting is

Disabled.

Enable GTF Modes for CRT provides a list of all available modes for

your monitor based on the Generalized Timing Formula standard. This

feature is enabled by default.

Enable ATI “Valid” and “Safe” flags in mode list, when enabled, lets the

video card to determine which video modes are valid and safe.

Enable Hot Plug Detection lets the operating system automatically detect

when a display is connected to the computer and activates the “Detect

Displays” button. This removes the need to restart the computer after

attaching a secondary display.

Default button undoes all changes and sets everything to the factory default

settings.

Apply button causes all the selected options to be enabled at one time.

10 Advanced DFP Tab

Advanced DFP Tab

The features on this tab are intended to support Digital Flat Panels (DFP)

only.

Enable ATI Hardware Scaler on non-Apple panels can be used with flat

panels with fixed resolutions. Use this feature to change video modes using

the ATI Scaler.

Enable frequency reduction on high resolution displays may correct

problems concerning jitter or dot crawl.

Enable Alternate DVI TMDS Receiver Mode corrects problems such as

noise or blank screens on some flat panels.

Default button undoes all changes and sets everything back to the original

factory settings.

Apply button enables all the selected options at one time.

3D OpenGL® Overrides

ATI Displays can override key 3D graphics options for OpenGL® based

games and applications. Create a profile, a group of settings, that can be

applied on a per program basis. Use OpenGL® Overrides to turn on

OpenGL® functionality when it is not supported by a specific application

or turn off functionality where it is enabled by an application.

3D OpenGL® Overrides 11

Add an Application Profile

To add an application to the Application Profile list:

Click the 3D icon in ATI Displays.

Click Add.

Browse to the desired application.

Click Choose.

Select or Create a Preset

ATI Displays includes a number of predefined OpenGL® presets that can

be applied to any application. You can also create your own unique preset.

To select a Preset:

Click the 3D icon in ATI Displays.

Select the desired preset from the Preset drop-down menu.

To create a new preset:

Click the 3D icon in ATI Displays.

Click Preset drop-down menu and select New Preset.

Enter a name for the preset.

12 Enabling Mac2TV™

Configure the preset by making adjustments to the Performance,

FSAA, Anisotropic Filtering, and Vertical Sync sliders.

Note: The preset selections and adjustments are saved automatically

as they are made.

Enabling Mac2TV™

The Mac2TV™ options are available when a TV is detected by the

graphics card. Mac2TV™ is only supported using the single link DVI

output via an Apple® DVI-to-Video adapter.

Set Up Tab

Video Output shows whether a TV or VCR has been detected. Select

Always Connected to over-ride this feature and force TV detection. Video

Output will display Device Detected (Off) or Device Detected (On)

depending on whether TV mode is selected. This feature is only supported

by graphics cards with a native TV Out port. The Radeon® 9600 PRO PC

& Mac Edition has this feature greyed out as it is always supported when

Mac2TV™ is enabled.

Use Output Standard to select and restrict the TV standard for your

country. The default setting is NTSC/PAL which provides support for both

standards.

Black & White, when enabled, forces Black & White output. The video

card produces greys instead of colors in the output signal producing sharper

images and text.

Optimizing Mac2TV™ 13

Extra Set up: Hard Sync to TV, when enabled, removes a black line that

may appear at the bottom of the screen of high end TV equipment. This

process slightly alters the color across the screen. This color alteration may

or may not be visible.

Unless you notice a black line on your TV screen, it is recommended to

leave Hard Sync to TV disabled.

Optimizing Mac2TV™

You can optimize your TV display using the video out preferences.

Viewing images on your TV can be improved by changing the contrast,

brightness, or size of your display.

To set the video out preferences, click the Mac2TV™ icon on the ATI

Displays Control Panel then click the Controls tab button.

Controls Tab

Sharpness makes details on the TV screen sharper. Use this setting to

make blurry text readable.

Frozen Dot Crawl, when enabled, removes the undesirable characteristic

of many Composite televisions that is seen as thin, jagged edges moving

around objects on the screen. It is especially useful for viewing pictures or

stills. S-Video equipment does not exhibit this effect.

14 Ratio/Size Tab

The Anti-Flicker slider reduces the amount of display flicker. Display

flicker is both a distraction and tiring to your eyes, and is most pronounced

when text is being displayed.

The Brightness slider is related to the amount of light emitted by your

display or reflected from an object.

The Contrast slider is a ratio of how far the whitest whites are from the

blackest blacks. If the contrast is too high, the image may look stark, like

pure white squares on a jet-black background. If the contrast is too low, the

image may look gray or washed out.

The Hue slider, often used as a synonym for “color”, is the quality that

distinguishes among red, green, yellow, and so on. Hue is generally not

adjusted. Depending on the TV, however, it may be necessary or desirable

to adjust the hue to approximate the monitor’s display.

The Saturation slider is the amount of color present that distinguishes pale

or washed-out colors from vivid ones. Extreme settings, will produce black

& white (greyscale) output.

The Default button undoes all changes and sets everything to the factory

default settings.

The Revert button undoes all changes and sets everything to the original

state or last known good setting.

Ratio/Size Tab

Use the Ratio/Size tab to adjust the Aspect Ratio and change the display

size and position.

To set the video out preferences, click the Mac2TV™ icon on the ATI

Displays Control Panel then click the Ratio/Size tab button.

Ratio/Size Tab 15

Use Aspect Ratio to select between a fully adjustable display or one locked

to a specific aspect ratio. 4:3 Standard, 16.9 Widescreen, and Current

screen resolution are all fixed modes.

Overscan increases the vertical and horizontal size to fill your TV.

Use Movie Mode for the best results viewing TV or DVDs.

Use Display Position to move the TV/VCR image on your display. Use the

arrow buttons to locate the image to the desired position.

Use Display Size to increase or decrease the size of the TV/VCR image on

your display.

The Default button undoes all changes and sets everything to the factory

default settings.

The Revert button undoes all changes and sets everything to the original

state or last known good setting.

16 ATI Displays Preferences

ATI Displays Preferences

From the ATI Displays drop down menu you can set the Preferences for the

ATI Displays control panel. Here you can configure how the ATI Displays

control panel starts and exits.

ATI Displays Help

ATI Displays Help is an additional source of information when you are

using the ATI Displays control panel. Simply click on the

ATI Displays control panel.

icon on the

Using DVD and QuickTime^®Playback

Use the Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition’s QuickTime® playback

acceleration to stretch movies to full screen size without compromising

frame rate or image quality. Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition’s

hardware scaler maintains the original quality of your DVD or

QuickTime® movie when scaling to a larger size – even full screen.

When playing movies in thousands or millions of colors, the ATI card

utilizes the 3D engine’s capabilities to scale and accelerate playback. When

scaling video, the Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition uses special

hardware techniques (bilinear filtering) to enhance the video quality

instead of just repeating pixels.

Using Digital Flat Panel (DVI) 17

Using Digital Flat Panel (DVI)

Use Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition’s DVI support feature to

output your computer’s display to your DVI digital flat panel, providing

you with:

• Crisper, clearer images.

• A true flat screen.

• Virtually no eye strain from prolonged viewing.

Using Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition DVI Connector

Use Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition to connect to a digital flat

panel display.

To output your computer’s display to a DVI digital flat panel

Looking at the back of your Mac, locate your ATI Graphics

Accelerator.

Attach one end of your DVI cable to the DVI connector on your

Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition and the other end to the DVI

connector on your DVI flat panel.

Dual Link DVI Monitor Port

18 Using Digital Flat Panel (DVI)

DVI-I Connector

Single link DVI-I Monitor port

DVI-I Connector

[

Turn on your DVI flat panel and your Mac.

Note: The DVI connector is hot swappable. You no longer need to

shut down your computer before attaching a digital flat panel.

A dual-link DVI transmits up to twice the amount of pixel information of

single link DVI connection. Use the dual-link DVI connector for extremely

high resolution displays such as Apple® 30-inch Cinema HD Displays.

Video Mode Table 19

CHAPTER 3:

Specifications

Video Mode Table

The video mode table below lists the color depth capabilities for the

supported resolutions on your Radeon® 9600 PRO PC & Mac Edition.

Please consult your monitor’s specifications to determine which

resolutions are available with your display.

Supported Modes

Display Resolution

Maximum Refresh

640 x 480

200

720 x 480

800 x 600

1024 x 768

1152 x 864

1152 x 870

1280 X 960

1280 x 1024

1600 x 900

1600 X 1024

1600 X 1200

1920 X 1080

1920 X 1200

1920 X 1440

2048 X 1152

2048 X 1280

200

150

120

20 Video Mode Table

Supported Modes

Display Resolution

2048 X 1536

Maximum Refresh

100

The minimum refresh rate for the above modes is 56Hz.

Digital Flat Panel

Connection Type

Resolution

Example Product

Single-Link (one DVI)

1680 X 1050

1920 X1200*

Apple 20” Cinema HD

Apple 23” Cinema HD

Single-Link (one DVI

or ADC)

Dual-Link (one DVI)

2560 X 1600

3840 X 2400

Apple 30” Cinema HD

IBM T221

Single-Link (one DVI

low refresh rate)

*Using a reduced blanking interval compatible with Apple®’s Cinema HD

ADC Display. This timing is not compatible with VESA’s 1920 x 1200

resolution when attached to an ADC connector.

Product Registration 21

CHAPTER 4:

Reference

Product Registration

To activate Customer Care you must register your product with ATI at:

ati.com/online/registration

Customer Care

For detailed instructions on how to use your ATI product, refer to the

Online User’s Guide included on your ATI installation CD-ROM.

If you require further assistance with your product, the following Customer

Care options are available:

Service

Online

Availability Language

Cost

Access

24/7

English,

Complimentary

ati.com

French,

Spanish,

Portuguese,

German

Telephone

US &

Canada

9:00AM -

7:00PM EST.

Monday to

Friday.

English

Toll Free

1-877-284-1566

1-905-882-2626

International

and/or local toll

charges to

Canada will

apply.

Telephone

Europe

and Other

Regions

10:30 to

00:00 GMT

English

International

and/or local toll

charges to

Germany will

apply

+49-1803-

347345

10:30 to

19:00 GMT

German-

French

International

and/or local toll

charges to

Canada will

apply

+1-905-882-5549

12:00 to

20:30 GMT

Spanish-

Portuguese

22 Customer Care

Service

Availability Language

Cost

Access

Telephone

Latin

7:00AM to

3:30 PM EST

Spanish,

Portuguese

Toll Free

+0800-333-5277

(Argentina

America /

South

America

Toll Free

+0800-891-9068

(Brazil)

7:00AM to

7:00PM EST

English

+001800-514-

3276 (Mexico)

International

and/or local toll

charges to

Canada will

apply

+1-905-882-3277

(Other)

Mail

ATI TECHNOLOGIES INC.

Attention: Customer Care

1 Commerce Valley Drive East

Markham, Ontario

Complimentary

Canada L3T 7X6

ATI Customer Care will work to resolve your issue and help you to get your

ATI product up and running. If your issue is not resolved, our technicians

will determine whether the difficulty you are experiencing is the result of

the ATI product, whether your product contains a defect, and whether your

product is under warranty.

• ATI Customer Care is unable to assist with refunds, returns, or

exchange specific inquiries. If resolving the problem being

experienced is critical to your decision to keep the product, it is

your responsibility to ensure that you know and are within the

period of time your reseller will allow for refunds, returns or

exchange.

• ATI is not responsible for any expense incurred accessing

Customer Care. It is expected that customers will review the

expense associated with the available support options and will

choose the method that best meets their needs and budget.

• ATI Customer Care reserves the right to limit support options for

products that are not registered or are at End of Life.

CHAPTER 5:

Compliance Information

FCC Compliance Information

This Radeon® product complies with FCC Rules part 15. Operation is subject to

the following two conditions

•

This device may not cause harmful interference, and

This device must accept any interference received, including interference that

may cause undesired operation.

This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant

to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful

interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency

energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with manufacturer's instructions, may cause harmful

interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in

a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television

reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try

to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

•

Re-orient or relocate the receiving antenna.

Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.

Connect the equipment to an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is

connected.

•

Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

The use of shielded cables for connection of the monitor to the graphics card is

required to ensure compliance with FCC regulations. Changes or modifications to

this unit not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could

void the user's authority to operate this equipment.

Industry Canada Compliance Statement

ICES-003 This Class B digital apparatus complies with Canadian ICES-003.

Cet appareil numérique de la Classe B est conforme à la norme NMB-003 du Canada.

For further compliance information:

ATI Research Inc.

4 Mount Royal Ave.

Marlborough, MA

01752-1976

USA

508-303-3900

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

(WEEE) Directive Compliance

This product was manufactured by ATI Technologies Inc.

Glossary

Acronym for “two dimensional,” a term applied to computer graphics that

are “flat.” Typical desktop applications such as word processors,

spreadsheet programs, or other programs that manipulate print or simple

graphics (such as pictures or line art) are generally considered to be

operating within a 2D environment, even when they include simple three

dimensional elements, such as buttons.

Acronym for “three dimensional,” referring to computer graphics that

appear to have volume and depth. Various modelling processes take the

representation of a three dimensional object provided by the computer

program and render it by using various lighting components, applying

textures, and setting layers of transparency or opacity as required in order

to produce a realistic representation of a three-dimensional object on a two-

dimensional display.

ADC

Short for “Apple® Display Connector,” a type of video connection found

only with certain Apple displays. In addition to carrying the video signal to

the monitor, it also carries power, so users can start their whole computer

using the power button on the monitor. This type of connector is being

phased out in favor of DVI connectors.

Alpha Blending

Alpha blending is used in 3D graphics to create transparent or opaque

effects for surfaces such as glass and water. Alpha is a transparency value,

so the lower the value, the more transparent the image looks. It is also used

in animations to produce such things as fading effects, where one image

gradually fades into another.

Anisotropic Filtering

A technique that preserves the surface details of an object as it recedes into

the distance by utilizing and blending together the object’s texture maps.

This makes 3D objects appear more realistic as the detail of their surface

texture is retained in a smooth, seamless fashion on the sections that move

or fade away into the background.

Anti-aliasing

A method that smooths out the jagged edges of a curved object. A black

curved line on a white background displayed on a computer screen will

have some jaggedness along its edges due to the inherent limitations of

using discrete pixels to display the image. Anti-aliasing smooths out this

jaggedness by filling in the white spaces between the jagged edges with

varying shades of grey.

Aspect Ratio

The proportions of a display are expressed as a ratio of its width and height.

Common ratios include 4:3 for TVs and CRTs, 5:4 for LCDs, and 16:9 for

widescreen displays.

Back Buffer

A type of offscreen memory used to provide smooth video and 2D graphics

acceleration. This technique uses two frame buffers, so the process is often

referred to as “double-buffering.” While the contents of one buffer are

displayed, a second buffer, called the “back” buffer, holds the frame being

worked on. In this way, users will only see complete, smooth frames

displayed onscreen.

Bilinear Filtering

This filtering method reduces the blockiness caused when zooming into a

3D surface that is at a right angle to the viewer. A newspaper photo

examined closely enough will show that the picture is made up of tiny dots.

If the photo was enlarged it would start to look “blocky” and less distinct.

This is also a problem for computer-generated images, especially for

surface details.

Bit Depth

Refers to the number of data bits required to store color information about

a pixel. Larger bit depth means a greater range of color information is

capable of being encoded into each pixel. For example, 1 binary bit of

memory can only encode to either “0” or “1.” So a graphical bit depth of 1

means that the display can only show two colors, the black and white of a

monochrome display. Four-bit color depth is capable of displaying 16

colors because there are only 16 different combinations of 4 bits (“0000”,

“0001”, “0010”... to “1111”). Sixteen-bit color is capable of reproducing

65,536 colors, and 24-bit color can display up to 16,777,216 individual

colors.

Bitmap

A bitmap is a graphic or character representation composed of individual

pixels, arranged horizontally in rows. A monochrome bitmap uses one bit

per pixel (bpp). Color bitmaps may use up to 32bpp, depending on the color

depth selected.

Brightness

The amount of white or black that is applied to all colors onscreen. By

making the screen “brighter” you are adding more white to it. This should

not be confused with luminosity, which measures the actual light level

emitted from the computer display.

Buffer

A name referring to portions of on-board video memory. One large buffer

is always used to display images to the screen; this is the “display buffer.”

The rest of offscreen memory is typically used by applications as back

buffers, z-buffers, and texture buffers.

Charisma Engine™ II

Incorporating a programmable Vertex Shader pipeline, Charisma Engine™

II is a transform and lighting engine designed to make 3D characters and

transitions even more life-like.

Color Component

Three color components—Red, Green, and Blue—combine in various

intensities to determine the color of each pixel on the screen. The values of

each color component are graphically represented by a corresponding color

curve.

Color Correction

Use Color Correction to correct discrepancies between the real color value

and the way a screen displays it. Color discrepancies can be caused by a

variety of sources, including the lighting conditions in the work area and

gradual shifts in color over time on monitors or flat panel displays.

Color Curve

A color curve represents all possible intensity values (from 0 to 255) for a

color component (Red, Green or Blue). For each color curve, the horizontal

axis represents the input value (the color value a program wants to display),

while the vertical axis represents the output value (the color value that the

display driver will write to the screen). A value of 0 (in the lower left

corner) represents the complete absence of that particular color, while a

value of 255 (in the upper right corner) represents the “full” strength for

that color.

CRT

Acronym for “cathode ray tube,” which is the main component of computer

monitors and TVs. Color CRTs use three separate electron beams fired

through a shadow mask and onto the back of the glass screen. The electron

beams activate separate red, green, and blue values in various strengths in

order to produce a colored image.

Dithering

A computer graphics technique that takes advantage of the human eye’s

tendency to mix two colors that are adjacent to each other to produce

smooth boundary transitions. Dithering adds intermediate color values

between two or more boundaries, producing smoother, more natural look

to 2D images or 3D objects.

Dual-Link DVI

A dual-link DVI transmits up to twice the amount of pixel information of

single link DVI connection. Use the dual-link DVI connector for extremely

high resolution displays such as Apple® 30-inch Cinema HD Displays.

Dot pitch

Dot pitch specifies the sharpness of a monitor’s display. It is measured in

millimeters (mm) and is the distance between the individual phosphor sub-

pixels in a CRT display or cells of the same color within an LCD display.

The smaller the number, the sharper the image. The most common dot

pitches for monitors range from .24 mm to .31 mm. Also, if a monitor with

a .24 mm dot pitch is set to its highest possible resolution, the pixel size will

equal the dot pitch. If the monitor is set to lower resolutions, the pixels will

be comprised of multiple dots.

DVI

Acronym for “Digital Video Interface,” a standard video connection used

on many current computer displays. There are three types of DVI

connections: DVI-A (analog), DVI-D (digital), and DVI-I (integrated,

capable of either analog or digital). It supports high-bandwidth video

signals over 160 Hz, so it is most often used for high-resolution displays.

Flat Shading

A lighting technique that shades each polygon of a 3D object based on

where the source of the light is and the angle of the polygon in relation to

it. It enables relatively fast rendering of 3D objects, although it can make

those objects appear “faceted” as each visible polygon is set to a particular

color value, and consequently does not produce as realistic an effect as

obtained when using Gouraud shading.

Fog

Term used to describe the blending of an object using a fixed color as

objects are made to appear more distant from the viewer.

Frame Buffer

The portion of the memory buffer on the graphics card used to store the

image being displayed. All rendering processes have been accomplished by

this stage and this buffer contains only a one-to-one relationship of the data

to be relayed to the display.

Frames Per Second

In terms of 3D graphics, refers to the rate at which the graphic processor

can render new screens per second. Higher rates equals better, more

naturalistic performance for such things as games set in a 3D environment.

Sometimes abbreviated to “fps.”

Gamma

Sometimes confused with brightness, gamma actually refers to the

correction that is applied to any display device in order to produce more

gradual increases or decreases in the perceived brightness for that device.

A change in gamma produces a non-linear change in the color curve,

ensuring that perceived changes in color and intensity are consistently

applied.

Gouraud Shading

A shading method used to produce a smooth lighting effect across a 3D

object. A specific color is used at each vertex of a triangle or polygon and

interpolated across the entire face.

Hue

Refers to a specific color within the visible spectrum of light, defined by its

dominant wavelength. A light wave with a central tendency within the

range of 565-590 nm is visible as yellow. In the standard RGB color space

used by most computer displays, hue refers to a coordinate of the color as

described by its red, green, and blue values, minus any additional

brightness or saturation values for that color.

HyperZ™

HyperZ™ decreases the amount of information sent to the frame buffer,

easing memory bandwidth limitations and allowing for ultra-high

resolutions and full-screen 3D acceleration in true color. It uses a

Hierarchical Z-buffer visibility algorithm to eliminate blocks of pixels that

are hidden behind displayed triangles, Z Compression to compress and

speed the resulting visual data and Fast Z-Clear, which updates only those

pixels whose values have changed.

Keyframe Interpolation

This feature is also known as “morphing.” In an animation, a start and end

point are picked as the key frames. In a 3D rendering, the start point could

have a character with a neutral expression, and the end point could have

that same character smiling. Additional frames are interpolated (inserted)

between the two keyframes in order that “morphs” (transforms) the image

so that there is a smooth transition between the key frames.

KTX Buffer Region Extension

This OpenGL® programming term refers to a feature that rapidly updates

portions of the display of 3D modelling applications that change very

quickly, or have been moved or occluded. It does this by optimizing the

storage of buffer regions in the graphics card’s memory buffer. Other

applications are typically not adversely affected when this is enabled.

Lighting

In 3D computer graphics, refers to aspects and quality of the virtual light

source being used to make an object visible. Lighting can strongly affect

the “mood” of a scene. For example, a “harsh” light could be a bare

lightbulb that is glaringly bright on the objects closest to it while casting

strong shadows in the background. A “softer” light would be more diffuse

and not cast shadows, such as you would get outdoors on a typical overcast

day.

Mipmapping

The most memory-intensive aspect of 3D graphics are the textures that give

an object its realism (like wood, marble, leather, and cloth). Because

objects in real life become less detailed as they move farther away from the

viewer, 3D programmers simulate this by using less detailed, lower

resolution texture maps on distant objects. These texture maps are merely

scaled down versions of the main texture map used when the object is up

close, and they use less memory.

NTSC

The name for the type of analog television signal used throughout the

Americas (except Brazil) and in Japan. It draws a total of 525 vertical

interlaced frames of video at a refresh rate of 60 Hz, making it relatively

flicker-free. The acronym refers to the National Television Systems

Committee, which devised this color video standard in 1953.

Offscreen Memory

An area of memory used to preload images so that they can be quickly

drawn to the screen. Offscreen memory refers to all of the remaining video

memory not taken up by the front buffer, which holds the contents of the

display screen currently visible.

OpenGL®

Short for “Open Graphics Library,” this is an industry standard for cross-

platform 3D graphics development. It consists of a large number of

functions that can be called upon in various programs, such as games,

CAD, and virtual-reality systems, to produce complex 3D objects from

simpler, more “primitive” building blocks. Implementations currently exist

under Windows®, Mac OS® X, and various forms of Unix, including

Linux®.

PAL

An acronym for “Phase Alternating Line”, the name for a video broadcast

standard used in much of Europe (except France), most of Asia, the

Middle-East, Africa and Australia. It draws a total of 625 vertical interlaced

frames of video at a refresh rate of 25 Hz.

Pipeline

In relation to computer graphic processors, refers to the number of separate

arithmetic units available for rendering the output on a display. In general,

more pipelines available on a graphical processor means there are more 3D

rendering capabilities available, increasing overall 3D performance.

Pixel

All computer images are made up of tiny dots. Each individual dot is called

a pixel, a word created from the term “picture element.” A pixel is the

smallest indivisible unit of a digital image and can be only a single color.

The size of the pixel depends on how the display resolution has been set.

The smallest size a pixel can be is determined by the display’s dot pitch,

which is measured in millimeters (mm).

Pixel Tapestry™ II

Pixel Tapestry™ II uses four parallel, highly optimized rendering

pipelines, each capable of handling two textures simultaneously. It

provides advanced texturing, making 3D surfaces look even more detailed

and realistic.

Refresh Rate

Also referred to as “vertical refresh rate.” This is the rate at which a monitor

or television can redraw the screen from top to bottom. NTSC television

systems have a refresh rate of approximately 60 Hz whereas computer

displays typically have refresh rates of 75 Hz or more. At refresh rates of

70 Hz and lower, screen flicker is often noticeable.

Rendering

Rendering refers to the final drawing stages where the 2D image that

appears on a display is derived from its 3D descriptions. What appears on

the display may look three dimensional, but it is really just a 2D grid of

pixels designed to appear that way.

Resolution

The resolution of any display is the number of pixels that can be depicted

on screen as specified by the number of horizontal rows against the number

of vertical columns. The default VGA resolution of many video cards is

capable of displaying 640 rows of pixels by 480 columns. The typical

resolution of current displays is set to higher values, such as 1024x768

(XGA), 1280x1024 (SXGA), or 1600x1200 (UXGA).

Saturation

Refers to the intensity of a specific hue (color). A highly saturated hue is

vivid and intense, whereas a less saturated hue appears more grey. A

completely unsaturated color is grey. In terms of the RGB color model, a

fully saturated color exists when you have 100% brightness in one of the

three channels (say, red) and 0% in the two others (green and blue).

Conversely, a fully desaturated color is one where all of the color values are

the same. Saturation can therefore be thought of as the relative difference

between the values of the channels.

Shadow Mask

In CRT monitors, the shadow mask is a metal plate full of tiny holes that is

attached to the inside of the glass screen. It focuses the beams from the

electron guns at the back of the CRT. The distance between these holes is

called the dot pitch.

SmartShader™

SmartShader™ is ATI’s patented shader technology, providing custom

transform and lighting effects for vertex shaders, allowing for finer control

over the shape and position of 3D objects, as well as pixel shader effects

that produce more accurate simulations of natural properties such as hair,

metal, glass, and water in a real-time rendering environment. Important

visual cues such as reflections, highlights, and shadows from multiple light

sources can be rendered more speedily and accurately. It also increases the

number of graphical effects that can be created, increasing overall

performance while conserving memory bandwidth.

SmoothVision™

SmoothVision™ supports high-quality and high-performance anti-aliasing

modes, both of which are required for creating high-quality 3D computer

graphics. Both of these modes provide users with the ability to choose

between 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, and 6x sampling, allowing for a total of 10 different

anti-aliasing settings, providing incrementally better, more realistic visual

displays. The SmoothVision™ technology maintains a high level of

performance even when a high anti-aliasing sampling rate is selected.

Specular Highlight

The bright, usually small, intense light reflected from a 3D surface with a

high refraction value. From the intensity and spread of this highlight users

can differentiate between a “hard,” smooth surface, such as metal or

porcelain, or a “soft,” textured surface, such as fabric or skin.

Texel

Short for “texture element,” the 3D equivalent of a pixel, describing the

base unit of the surface of a 3D object, such as a sphere; for a 2D object,

such as a circle, the base unit is a pixel.

Transition Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS)

A technology designed to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) and

improve the digital signal delivered to flat panel displays. Its encoding

algorithm converts the original 8-bit graphic data into a more fault-tolerant

10-bit signal, which is then converted back to its original 8-bit form at the

display device. The signal is also DC-balanced, allowing for the option of

transmitting the signal over fibre-optic cable. DVI connectors can

incorporate up to two TMDS links, with each “link” comprised of the

number of signals required for standard RGB output. Higher resolutions

and refresh rates than standard are possible if multiple TMDS links are

available by using multiple DVI connectors.

Trilinear Filtering

A sampling method used to produce realistic-looking 3D objects. Trilinear

filtering averages one of the bilinear filter mipmap levels along with the

standard mipmap samples.

VersaVision™

An ATI technology enabling accelerated display rotation and scaling. Any

desktop can now be rotated 90 degrees left or right, or even 180 degrees,

while maintaining the full feature set of other ATI 2D and 3D technologies,

such as SmoothVision™. VersaVision™ works with single or multiple

displays.

Vertex Shader

Three-dimensional objects displayed on a screen are rendered using

polygons, each of which is made up of intersecting triangles. A vertex is a

corner of a triangle where it connects to another triangle, and each vertex

carries a considerable amount of information describing its coordinates in

3D space, as well as its weight, color, texture coordinates, fog, and point

size data. A Vertex Shader is a graphics processing function that

manipulates these values, producing such things as more realistic lighting

effects, improved complex textures such as hair and fur, and more accurate

surface deformations such as waves rippling in a pool or the stretching and

wrinkling of a character’s clothes as he or she moves.

VGA Connector

A type of graphics connector, sometimes also called an analog connector.

It is the most common type of video connector available, consisting 15-pins

set in three rows. The “VGA” is an acronym for “Video Graphics Array,”

which is also the name for the video resolution mode of 640x480 pixels, the

lowest standard resolution supported by virtually all video cards.

Z-buffer

The portion of video memory that keeps track of which onscreen elements

can be viewed and which are hidden behind other objects. In the case of a

3D image, it keeps track of which elements are occluded by the foreground

in relation to the user’s perspective, or by another 3D object.

Index

Numerics

2D 7, 25, 26, 28, 33, 34, 35

3D 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36

3D Graphics 2

3D OpenGL Overrides 10

ADC 20, 25

ADC connector 20

Add an Application Profile 11

Advanced Display Options 6

Anisotropic Filtering 12, 25

Anisotropic filtering 25

Anti-aliasing 26

Anti-Flicker 14

Apple Cinema HD 20

Apple Display Connector 25

Apple Displays Properties 9

Apple DVI-to-Video adapter 12

Apple System Preferences 5

Apple System Profiler Report 6

Aspect Ratio 14, 15, 26

ATI Displays 5, 10, 11

ATI Displays Control Panel 6

ATI Displays Help 16

ATI Displays Preferences 16

ATI Guide

accessing 16

description 16

Back Buffer 26

Bilinear Filtering 26

bilinear filtering 16

Bit depth 26, 27

Bitmap 27

Black & White 12

Brightness 14

brightness 27, 30, 33

Buffer 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 36

buffer 30

Charisma Engine II 27

Color 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35

Color component 27, 28

Color correction 28

Color curve 28

Contrast 14

Control Panel 5

Controls Tab 13

Core Image 1

Create Apple System Profiler Report 6

CRT 1, 28, 29, 34

Customer Care 21, 22

Detect Displays 6

Display Control Tab 9

Display Info 6

Display Scaling 7

Display Size 15

Dithering 28

dock 8

Dot pitch 29, 32, 34

DVD 1, 15, 16

DVI 1, 29, 35

DVI-A 29

DVI-D 29

DVI-I 29

Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) 35

Enable ATI “Valid” and “Safe” 9

Enable GTF Modes for CRT 9

Enable Hot Plug Detection 9

Enabling Mac2TV 12

External Connections 1

Extra Set up 13

FCC Compliance 23

Finder 3

Flat Shading 29

Fog 29, 35

Force Single Display Operation 9

fps 30

Frame Buffer 29

Frames per second 30

Frames per second (fps) 30

Frozen Dot Crawl 13

Full-Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) 12

gamma 30

Gouraud Shading 29, 30

GPU 3

Graphic Card

features 2

Hard Sync 13

Hard Sync to TV 13

Help 22

Hue 14, 30, 33

HyperZ 3, 30

IBM T221 display 20

Industry Canada Compliance 23

Keyframe interpolation 31

KTX Buffer Region Extension 31

Lighting 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 35

Linux 32

Mac OS X 32

Mac2TV 12, 14

Mipmapping 31

Monitor Resolution

2D video mode table 19

Multimedia Features 2

NTSC 12, 31, 33

Offscreen Memory 32

Open the ATI Displays 5

OpenGL 1, 3, 10, 11, 31, 32

Optimizing Mac2TV 13

Output Standard 12

Overscan 15

PAL 12, 32

Pipeline 32

Pixel 26, 27, 29, 32, 34

Product Registration 21

Profile dialog 6

Quartz Extreme 1, 3

QuickTime 3, 16

Radeon 6

Ratio/Size Tab 14

Red Green Blue (RGB) 30, 33, 35

Refresh Rate 31, 32, 33