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PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition
book

PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

by Robert Bruce Thompson, Barbara Fritchman Thompson
July 2003
Beginner to intermediate content levelBeginner to intermediate
874 pages
38h 13m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Display Settings

The following display settings determine how much information a video adapter and driver display and how often that information is updated:

Resolution

Resolution , also called addressability, refers to the maximum number of pixels that the video adapter can display, listed by vertical columns and horizontal rows. For example, a standard VGA adapter can display at most 640 columns by 480 rows of pixels, which is abbreviated as 640x480 resolution. Video cards do not support continuously variable resolution, but instead provide standard “prepackaged” combinations of vertical and horizontal resolution—e.g., 1280x1024. Using higher resolution permits more information to be displayed. Also, for any given size of an object onscreen, using higher resolution allocates more pixels to that object, avoiding “jaggies”, “stair-stepping,” and other video artifacts that degrade image quality. Conversely, using too high a resolution for the monitor size results in individual display elements becoming too small to be readable. The best resolution to use is determined by monitor size and quality, video adapter capabilities, and personal factors such as visual acuity.

Color depth

A pixel, also called a pel or picture element, is the smallest individually addressable display element, and comprises three subunits, one each for red (R), green (G), and blue (B). Color depth refers to the number of discrete colors that can be displayed, and is determined by the number of bits allocated ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 059600513XErrata Page