3D Hardware Primer

Processor & Chip. Your computer has several chips in it. The processor, the main one, is your main processing chip. It is of course very important! Processor's come in two flavors these days, 32 and 64 bit. 98% of us are on the 32 bit kind. The 64 bit chip is a relatively new thing. It's not going away though, but until the market catches up, a lot of hardware and software may not be able to take full advantage of it's abilities. If your 32bit chip is really fast and relatively new, i would not toss it and go buy a 64 bit chip. You may not see a difference at all. Of course, if your software has been upgraded for the 64bit chip, then by all means. But if you knew that, you shouldn't be reading this anyway:). The Math chip, or Math co-processor, or floating-point processor, or some other name i don't know about, is another import chip in your box. The main processor will assign math problems to this secondary chip to keep it's mind on other tasks. This can be a tremendous time saver. Make sure you have one by checking your motherboard physically, or even better, look at the manual. You probably have one. The computer i witnessed sans math chip was a mac, it was pretty sad one too. One more thought about your processor. Keep it cool! Crucial. Not only will it perform better, it will last longer too when kept at the right temperature. Go to radio shack and ask the guy behind the counter to help you install a thermometer in one of your vacant cdrom bay windows. Not only is it cool to look at, you will know for sure if your chip is keeping cool. Also, feel free to install more fans than your box came with. Many boxes have extra plugins for accessories like fans. The more fans inside your box, the more air is moving around. If you own a water-cooled system i am jealous! I wish my computer was quieter.

Although the flat panels have landed, a CRT monitor is actually faster. Yup, that's right. CRT's refresh rate are astoundingly higher that flat panels. If speed is the highest priority, use a CRT. And a small one too. Keep in mind that the larger your monitor gets the more pixels you have on your screen. The more pixels on your screen means more work for your computer. I will shut up about this one though because my monitor is still not big enough in my opinion.

Your video card is sadly also needing inspection. This is by far the most important part to doing 3D visually. There are some giant gaps too in video card prices. You can easily speed $500.00 for a video card and still not come close to the top-of-the-line models which can sell for $2000.00. Inspect your own video card. Find out if it is AGP or not. AGP cards are for motherboards with an AGP slot. This AGP slot is typically slightly offset from your other slots in your machine. Some motherboards have built-in video and an AGP slot. Some only have an AGP slot. Some don't have an AGP slot. You need an AGP slot. AGP is just plain faster. The alternative would be for you to hook up your video card in a regular slot. This will always be slower than the AGP slot. Video cards are with AGP or not. AGP are more expensive. Video cards have their own memory on the card. The more ram the card has, the better obviously. This ram enables your processor to ignore the video data and simply pass it directly to the video card. That is why AGP is so important. It is a shorter road for the video data to travel.