ATI Technologies Nexus GA User Manual page 45

Refresh Rate Also referred to as "vertical refresh rate". The rate at which a
monitor or television can redraw the screen from top to
bottom. NTSC television systems have a refresh rate of
approximately 60 Hz (but only draw one-half of the video
frame in one pass); computer displays typically have refresh
rates of 75 Hz or more. At a refresh rate of 70 Hz and lower,
screen flicker is often noticeable.
Specular The bright, usually small, intense light reflected from a 3D
Highlight surface with a high refraction value.
Texture Mapping, or placing, an image onto an object. Images of
Mapping realistic surfaces are placed on 3D models to create a
richer and more complex visual effect.
Trilinear Sampling method used to produce the most realistic
Filtering looking 3D objects. Trilinear filtering averages one of the
bilinear filter MIP Map levels along with the standard MIP
Map samples.
WRAM Window Random Access Memory. WRAM is a high
capacity, high-bandwidth type of memory, which is
dual-ported. Unlike single-ported memory (DRAM,
SGRAM), dual-ported memory allows refresh of the
display and hardware rendering to occur concurrently.
At higher graphic resolutions and refresh rates, dual-
ported memory becomes very important since the graphics
processor can get instructions constantly without having to
wait. This makes high performance WRAM graphic
accelerator cards, like the Nexus GA, a better choice for
graphic professionals that require high resolutions and
high refresh rates.
z-buffer A z-buffer is an area of off-screen memory used to hold
"depth" information. For each dot, or pixel, in the display
buffer, there is a corresponding dot in the z-buffer which
holds the depth (z) value for the display pixel. The depth
data helps the ATI accelerator card decide what 3D objects
are in front off other 3D objects.
The larger the 3D window, the larger the z-buffer is in
memory.
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