User`s guide

Alpha Blending

Alpha blending is used in 3D graphics to create transparent or opaque effects

for surfaces such as glass and water. Alpha is a transparency value, so the

lower the value, the more transparent the image looks. It is also used in

animations to produce such things as fading effects, where one image

gradually fades into another.

Alternate Frame Rendering

A graphical load-balancing scheme where two graphics cards are used to

render alternate frames of the display. This configuration increases the detail

of the 3D objects each card can render, as each card handles half of the total

number of frames. Essentially, each card has more time to render a scene,

delivering a noticeable increase in 3D detail. This type of graphical operation

is only available in Radeon

CrossFire™ graphics cards running Microsoft

Direct 3D

and OpenGL

games or applications.

Anisotropic Filtering

A technique that preserves the surface details of an object as it recedes into the

distance by utilizing and blending together the object’s texture maps. This

makes 3D objects appear more realistic as the detail of their surface texture is

retained in a smooth, seamless fashion on the sections that move or fade away

into the background.

Anti-aliasing

A method that smooths out the jagged edges of a curved object. A black

curved line on a white background displayed on a computer screen will have

some jaggedness along its edges due to the inherent limitations of using

discrete pixels to display the image. Anti-aliasing smooths out this jaggedness

by filling in the white spaces between the jagged edges with varying shades

of grey.

hightech_maib -- HIGHTECH -- 202.82.32.137

-- Monday, October 30, 2006