An expansion board that plugs into a personal computer to give it display capabilities. A computer's display capabilities depend on both the logical circuitry (provided in the video adapter) and the monitor. Each adapter offers several different video modes. The two basic categories of video modes are text and graphic. Within the text and graphic modes, some monitors also offer a choice of resolutions. At lower resolutions a monitor can display more colors. Modern adapters contain memory, so that the computer's RAM is not used for storing displays. In addition, most adapters have their own graphics coprocessor for performing graphics calculations. These adapters are often called graphics accelerators. See also network adapter.
DA. A circuit board added to a computer to drive a monitor or other display device.
The logical circuitry that provides—in combination with the display or monitor—your computer's video capabilities. A display adapter may support more or fewer features than a specific display or monitor offers. Typically, a display adapter comes with video drivers for displaying popular application programs and operating environments in a variety of video modes. On Dell portable computers, a display adapter is integrated into the system board. Display adapters often include memory separate from RAM on the system board. The amount of video memory, along with the adapter's video drivers, may affect the number of colors or shades of gray that can be simultaneously displayed. Display adapters can also include their own coprocessor for faster graphics rendering.
Usually this is the same as the video card, but some mother- boards have built-in video, and so don't require an additional card. The display adapter contains video memory which stores what is displayed on the computer's monitor. They have a wide range of features, from a basic frame buffer, to advanced 3D geometric rendering engines.
Converts images created in the PC to the electronic signals required by the monitor.
See definition for: video adapter
