Hardware Tips & Troubleshooting

Graphic Card

The graphic card is one of the most important pieces of hardware in your PC. Without it, your super monitor with all the bells and whistles is just a junk box.

Make Directional Input

Most video cards come with simple frame capture programs, but you'll have to do some programming if you plan to integrate video capture with other operations on your computer, such as adding text data as an overlay or changing video-in channels on the fly. In this case you'll need good programming libraries in a language with which you are familiar for the video card. Some companies include libraries with their cards, but most charge extra. Most often libraries, when available, are for C or BASIC, and sometimes Pascal.

Source: Windows Magazine

Choose Between 24 bit and 32 bit

For True Colour mode, some graphic cards offer 24 bit while some offer 32 bit. Which is the best? When True Colour mode was first suggested, it utilizes 32 bit which was very pleasing to the eye, they realize that 24 (with less colours) won't look much different since the human eye can only take about a certain amount of colours. On the other hand, 24 bit will run faster compared to 32 bit because it uses less colours. So if your card utilizes 24 bit, don't worry, it isn't bad.

Always Use The Latest Drivers

Yes, it is important to make sure you always have the latest drivers. The latest drivers wil offer you better performance, more utilities and more compatibility (usually for DirectX or Direct3D). Take the effort to check you card manufacturer's site to look for the latest driver updates.

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