• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

doubts that need to be cleared

O

OinkBoink

Senior member
1)What is all this 2.2ns and 2.8ns RAM on the grafix cards.if im right isn't that speed?but what is the meaning and the full form of "ns"?
2)what is "volumetric" lighting?
3)i dont have a very clear idea about whats a game engine.can u please tell me this??
4)what is the difference between intel 865pe and 875pbz chipsets?
5)on the motherboard there are some things called northbridge and southbridge.what are these???please explain??
6)how do u flash a card from one to another?

please dont use any technical or computer words explain all these in plain english.

 
Totally wrong forum. This should be in General Hardware ... and Motherboards, and Software ...

1) ns = Nanoseconds
2) Typically, lights are not visible, only their effects. Volumetric lights have properties making their point of origination and beam visible. "Ray of light" effect.
3) Game engine - The driving code behind a game, not the data (graphics, sounds) itself
4) i875 has "Performance Acceleration Technology" and some other features; I'm not an Intel fanboy so I don't know offhand.
5) "Bridges" between the different major components of the system - North = PCI/AGP to CPU/Memory. South = CPU/Memory to "Other" (USB, legacy ports)
6) Read data from one with a special program, write it to the other with a (BIOS?) flash prorgam.

- M4H
 
guys please explain properly in detail and i told u DONT USE ALL THAT TECHY STUFF.what is northbridge and southbridge?
 
i didnt understand anything.i noe that u are thinking that im a @$$.but every body starts from 123456.... not trigonometry.
 
Last edited:
1)What is all this 2.2ns and 2.8ns RAM on the grafix cards.if im right isn't that speed?but what is the meaning and the full form of "ns"?
2)what is "volumetric" lighting?
3)i dont have a very clear idea about whats a game engine.can u please tell me this??
4)what is the difference between intel 865pe and 875pbz chipsets?
5)on the motherboard there are some things called northbridge and southbridge.what are these???please explain??
6)how do u flash a card from one to another?
Click to expand...
Oh, boy, this is gonna take a while.

OK, let's begin.

1. 2.2ns and 2.8ns is the speed. But sometimes manufacturers will use these higher speed chips at a lower speed. Many people are happy about this, because they can then overclock, making the card quicker than design specifications, and gain a little more performance, but at the expense of more heat and sometimes instability, which may make the card work improperly. The full meaning of ns is nano-seconds which is 1x10^-9.

2. I don't know what that is.

3. A game engine is pretty much the game itself. It controls how the game does graphics. The physics of the game, ex. shooting someone across the map and how accurate you have to be. Think of a game without graphics or levels or anything. From the engine people have to create the levels and graphics that go with it according to the engine specifications and then you have a game. Engines are very complex and not everyone designs their own engines. Mostly people just use engines from other games and modify them to allow better graphics.

4. I'm not Intel boy either, but I think the difference is just that the 865 has a 533MHz Bus and the 875 has a 800MHz Bus. A Bus are the lines that you see on the motherboard. Basically they are paths from one component to another.

5. A Northbridge is a chip located under the processor. It uses either active cooling, meaning it uses a heatsink, a peice of aluminum or copper shaped to cool anything under it effeciently by taking the heat and letting it out through fins, with a fan on top in some cases or passive cooling, which is just the use of a heatsink. This chip connects the processor to the RAM and those two to the graphics card. Also provides a connection to the Southbridge chip. This chip has no cooling on it. It handles all the PCI, Peripheral Component Interconnect, devices, the HDD, Hard Disk Drive and anything you plug into the back of the computer, besides the Power Plug.

6. Flashing a card means taking the BIOS, Basic Input Output System, and overwriting it. The BIOS is the most basic function of the computer or any piece of hardware. Everything has to talk to it. It is very risking to change this because if something goes wrong, you have no more operation from that device. You would use a program to Flash it, but again, it is very risky.
 
Originally posted by: nikhilesh
i need one of u guys to tell me,search engines on these things are generally useless.
Click to expand...

What do you mean useless? Anandtech's FAQ itself has answers to most of your question.. if you don't understand the more "techy" stuff, you'll have to read up the basics first..
 
I'm feeling generous:

1. The lower the number, the higher the memory can be clocked. 2.2ns (nanosecond) memory can be clocked higher than 2.8ns memory. You can find the theoretical maximum clock speed of a memory chip thusly: 1000 / X ns = Y MHz. So 1000 / 2.2ns ~= 454MHz, meaning 2.2ns memory has a theoretical maximum speed of ~450MHz.

2. AFAIK, fancier fog. Most fog effects in older games are achieved by a bunch of semi-transparent planes. This effect is visible in games like Counter Strike, where you can see the "fog" of a smoke grenade gets thicker (less transparent) not gradually but abruptly (because the fog affect is achieved by a number of semi-transparent planes). (If you don't know what a plane is, learn trig. 😛 Here's a hint: think of a "plane" as a pane of glass, or a window. Think of the smoke effect in CS as multiple tinted panes, with more panes resulting in thicker, or less transparent, smoke.) Volumetric fog doesn't use multiple planes, it just gets gradually (not abruptly) less transparent the farther you get from the camera (the greater the depth), like real fog.

Here's how Beyond3D's glossary defines it, if you can handle the shorter and more "mathematical" definition:

Volumetric fogging:
Atmospheric noise effect with depth, in addition to a defining plane. Frequently employed in 3D scenes to reduce polygon count and avoid "pop-up" scenery.
Click to expand...

3. A game engine is basically what the developers program to output graphics to your monitor. Generally, the better the programmers, the better the game engine, the better the effects or speed.

4. No idea, but I'm sure there are tons of reviews out there that can explain that to you. Try Anandtech or TechReport. I think the only difference is that the 875 offers better memory performance, but some newer motherboards based on the 865 offer the same performance boost. Here, read this review for a new MB that offers "875P-like performance." (Honestly, this is the laziest question of them all. Honestly, you're posting this on the Anandtech forums. Anandtech became famous for its motherboard reviews, for heaven's sake!)

5. IIRC, Northbridge coordinates communications between the CPU and memory and Southbridge coordinates communication between AGP & PCI slots and onboard floppy/IDE/SATA/sound/LAN/USB/Firewire and the Northbridge. (I may be wrong about which chip controls system-AGP communication, though.) Some newer motherboards integrate the Southbridge into the Northbridge, thus saving money by using only one chip for both.

6. Don't. If you don't know the answers to your other questions, don't try to flash a video card BIOS, as its a tricky proposition.
 
please dont use any technical or computer words explain all these in plain english.
Click to expand...

Well, since you used technical or computer words in your original questions, that's kinda hard isn't it?

How about next time you start off by explaining what you DO know 😉

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top