Computer Busses

11

AGP

11.1 Introduction

The AGP (accelerated graphics port) is a major advancement in the connection of 3D graphics applications, and is based on an enhancement of the PCI bus. One of the major motivating factors is to improve the speed of transfer between the main system memory and the local graphics card. This reduces the need for large areas of memory on the graphics card, as illustrated in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1 AGP card using main system memory

The main gain in moving graphics memory from the display buffer (on the graphics card) to the main memory is the display of text information as:

• It is generally read-only, and does not have to be displayed ...