In today's computing hardware acceleration is used everywhere.It has become as familiar and natural, as an extension of processor instructions MMX.But it was not always.The first tentative steps developers and programmers to promote new opportunities, a mixed assessment of the computer community, and then - the recognition ... it was.Now, however, hardware acceleration is present in almost every product and program.Sometimes, even where it and no one will look.If you want a video card that supports hardware acceleration?Please!A sound card?Yes, plenty!But the network card?And she has the ability to unload the CPU from routine work with data packets!
Hardware Acceleration is widely used in a variety of programs for handling multimedia streams.Because of this it is possible to significantly reduce the time spent.Not everyone knows that the browser makers have long incorporated into their products the ability to accelerate work with graphics (rendering complex pages) through the use of hardware acceleration through the basic functions of the video card.
What kind of acceleration it?In fact, everything is simple.According to the general scheme of the device of the computer performs all mathematical calculations central processor (CPU).So, the team calculate the amount of "2 + 2" program is converted to machine code and passed to him for processing.But as each second processor executes a huge number of calculations with the addition of a new task its performance is slightly reduced - the kernel is loaded.Developers have long sought to increase the speed of payments without increasing the power of CPU, and the introduction of ancillary hardware capabilities given the opportunity.
Imagine a graphics card of a decade ago.It was a logic and video memory.Any information somehow related to the images recorded with an array of memory cells in a certain way and transformed into a signal "clear" schemes monitor.
Any change in the image, even banal movement of a point on a color background - the result of the CPU.He hoped to coordinate offset and the cycle repeats.If the point is not one, the number of calculations increases.In addition, the processor already has "something to do".The result - slow down.
To address this on the video card began to place a specialized processor, which dealt only with graphics, which allowed to release the resources of the universal CPU.This method has been used for sound - audio chip "learned" to accelerate some of the features;network - adapter got a specialized processor, etc..
Disable or enable hardware acceleration in the application, you can, but only if such a feature is provided by the programmer.For example, to control graphics acceleration in Windows XP as follows: you must call the properties of the desktop and follow the path "Settings - Advanced - Diagnostics."Slider, located in this window allows you to fully or partially disable hardware acceleration of the entire system.Sometimes it is necessary to address compatibility issues.
