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Thread: Hardware Pipe question

  1. #1
    Junior Member Newbie
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Posts
    14

    Hardware Pipe question

    When reading the hardware specs, I found a description of the amount of parallel pipes...what is the difference between:
    4x2 and
    8x1
    number of pipes?
    Or, where can I read about it?

    --Joseph

  2. #2
    Senior Member OpenGL Guru
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Posts
    2,704

    Re: Hardware Pipe question

    An 8x1 card can do 8 pixels in parallel, each with a single texture. If you use two textures, it has to loop the pixels, so it'll do 8 pixels with 2 textures in 2 cycles.

    A 4x2 card can do 4 pixels with two textures in parallel -- or 4 pixels with one texture. Thus, if you use single-texturing, that card is half the speed (per clock) of the 8x1 card.

    Of course, there's many other things that affect the performance of a graphics card, just like there are 4 cylinder cars that can outrun 8 cylinder cars...
    "If you can't afford to do something right,
    you'd better make sure you can afford to do it wrong!"

  3. #3
    Junior Member Newbie
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Posts
    14

    Re: Hardware Pipe question

    Ah, thanks! That makes sense.

    --Joseph

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