(^258) PC Hardware: A Beginner’s Guide
The video standards that followed VGA are grouped into a collection of standards
based on the SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array), a standard that was developed by
VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association), a standards organization made u pof
monitor and graphics card manufacturers. SVGA includes virtually all video graphics
standards that have better resolution or more colors than VGA.
SVGA supports a color palette with over 16 million colors and a range of resolutions,
including 800 × 600, 1024 × 768, 1280 × 1024, 1,600 × 1,200, and higher. Not all SVGA
boards (nearly every video card sold today) will display all 16 million colors or support
alloftheSVGAresolutions.Dependingonthemanufacturerofthecard,someorallofthe
SVGA standard is supported. Table 12-1 lists the more popular video graphic adapter
standards in use today. Notice that as resolutions increase, the number of simultaneous
colors that can be displayed decreases.
Because the SVGA standard is fairly broad and from the user’s perspective is used
mainly to match the video card to the monitor, video cards on the market today are less
tied to videostandards. For the most part, they are SVGA cards, but their focus is on
Figure 12-2. A screen capture of a 640 × 480 display
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