Definition of a Graphics Driver

[kara3334]

Hi,

Is changing the resolution and/or color in the Display Properties box under the Settings tab the same as configuring the graphics driver? And if so, does lowering the resolution or reducing the color enable a computer to use less power?

Thanks.

 

[sregmi]

see if

http://www.webopedia.com/

helps

 

[KevinADC]

if decreasing the resolution or refresh rate causes the monitor or video card to use less wattage it might use a little less energy. But I am not sure how much, my gut feeling is the difference is very little if any, at least for the typical PC or laptop computer.


Changing the display properties is not the same as configuring the video/graphics driver. Thats just changing the settings your current software and hardware use with the exisitng set of drivers that are installed.

 

[paparazi]

kara3334
Two things here.

Graphics card and monitor.

One is working to produce the image the other is just displaying the produced signal.

True to say lower settings won't stress the graphics card as much so less power is used but this is all relative, a 2D desktop image at any displayable resolution isn't going to stress a graphics card that much, considering most modern cards are designed for far more intensive 3D gaming.

Put that together with the fact your GPU is just one component in a system full of consumers, the savings in power are going to be very small indeed.

Obviously the more powerful the GPU the higher percentage of energy is consumed by the graphics adapterin a system, however the variations in consumption with 2D rendoring at differant resolutions ie desktop, would be miniscule.

Martin

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[felixc]

In the Windows world these concepts have blended together from the user point of view.

Windows has a set of display combinations that are possible. These are matched to the capabilities of the graphics card. Windows will know them by issuing calls to the driver. I addition the driver has lots of other uses than display settings. It provides a language layer that is used by the operating system (like Direct X) to write information to the screen, independently of the video card. This includes bug fixes. Thus the importance of having recent display drivers.

Yes a lower resolution and lower color depth will reduce the power consumption, but only for the graphics card. The power consumption is tied to the clock frequencies of the chips. A VGA screen at 640 x 480 x 256 colors has each pixel clocked at 25 MHz. At 1280 x 1024 x 256 colors, the clock is 135MHz. But as Martin says, the power consumed by the VGA card is low compared to the motherboard components.

 

[kara3334]

Thank you Felixc for clearing that up for me. I'm no longer tearing my hair out.

 

[cdogg]

2D resolution on any card will rarely consume more than 10 watts of the card's total draw.

Changing the resolution or refresh rate of the graphics driver might have a high impact on the pixel clock (felix's example demonstrates an 800% jump in speed). But the amount of wattage needed to make that jump is not proportional. In other words, it's not going to take 8 times as much power to go from 640x480 to 1280x1024. It may only take 2-3 watts. When you compare that to your entire PC that's eating over 150 watts or more at any given time, that's too small to notice in my opinion...

The monitor will always be using every pixel on the screen, so I can't imagine it making much difference there. If anything, the refresh rate might be the only setting that has any impact there.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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