table-based fogging: Used by 3D accelerators, it's a type of fog-rendering technique. Fog is a general term representing all atmospheric effects: haze, mist, smoke, smog. When fogging is enabled, distant objects fade into the fog color. Both the fog color and the fog density (the rate at which objects fade as a function of their distance from the viewer) are programmable. Usually set by the programmer, table-based fog is where the fog table is indexed with a floating-point representation of one of the pixel's component. This fog table should consist of 64 density values, which are unsigned 8-bit quantity. A value of 0 indicates minimum density, and 255 indicates maximum density. Fog is applied after color combining and before alpha blending.
tables: Tables are a feature of HTML that allows designers and developers to lay out rows and columns of information.
tag RAM: Memory chips that store memory addresses for use by a microprocessor's Level 2 (L2) or Level 3 (L3) cache. The memory addresses point to locations in main memory (RAM) from which the data in the cache came. Without enough tag RAM, the cache can "see" only a limited amount of the system's total memory.
target: In web authoring, code that tells the browser what window to go to when a hyperlink is selected by the user. For example, the target "_blank" tells the browser to launch a new window, rather than going to a new page in the current window.
TBS: Time base corrector. Adjusts a video's color to meet broadcast specs.
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. These are international standards that govern how computers can send information over data networks. The Internet is an example of a network that uses TCP/IP. Local-area networks (LANs) often use different standards.
10BaseT: The original version of the IEE 802.3u standard that allows data to be transmitted at a speeds of 10Mbps using twisted-pair telephone cable.
10/100BaseT: An Ethernet standard that supports both 10Mbps and 100Mbps data throughput via the same hardware device.
terabyte: One terabyte (TB) is equivalent to 1000 gigabytes (GB). 2 to the 40th power (1,099,511,627,776) bytes, or approximately 1 trillion bytes.
Terminator: A synthetic flesh-covered cyborg designed to kill specific, pre-programmed prey.
test beds: A lab term referring to the control machines on which the technicians carry out their benchmarking and evaluations. Also refers to the sleeping platform where you evaluate the teachings of the Kama Sutra.
texel: Short for TEXture ELement. Refers to the individual pixel that makes up a bitmapped graphic that is used as a texture when it's applied on a polygon.
texelfx2 A term specific to 3Dfx Voodoo2 cards, it refers to two graphics processor chips that handle texture storage and processing duties. At least one pixelfx2 chip is needed for it to work properly in a Voodoo2 configuration. Since Voodoo2 has two of these texelfx2 chips working in parallel, this is considered a dual graphics pipeline capable of performing multi-texturing in a single-render cycle.
texture: The surface graphics on a 3D object. Without textures, 3D objects look like naked skeletons of polygons. Textures add realism--a brick wall, the skin of a lizard, or the gleaming metal surface of a spaceship. A 3D program stores a texture as a graphics pattern and applies it to the structure of polygons. 370-pin socket An unofficial term for a 370-pin CPU interface introduced by Intel in 1998. Sometimes it's called Socket 9, because Socket 8 was the Pentium Pro's interface and Socket 7 was for Pentium-class CPUs.
texture compression: The ability to shrink texture data down from a larger size down to a smaller size by replacing certain types of data (determined by the compressor) deemed redundant and replacing it with an approximation that will be used in the lower-sized palette. This often results in lower-colored textures and could also cause some visual artifacts to be introduced, resulting in a dithered effect.
texture seams: Unsightly artifacts and stray pixels in between two textures that are mapped next to each other. Usually seams are either white or white pixels, or you'll see background artwork peering through. Caused by bad programming or bad video chip drivers.
texture storage: Refers to a medium where texture data (bitmap graphics that will be applied onto polygons) is stored. Texture storage can occur in (from fastest to slowest) local videocard memory, system memory, or on the hard drive.
texture-mapped: A 3D object that has an image wrapped onto it to represent its surface. It is the principal way that 3D games fake realism. Virtually all new 3D games rely on texture mapping.
texture-mapping: The process of mapping a graphical element, usually a bitmap, onto a polygon in 3D space.
texture maps: You use scanned photos or painted images to add detail to an image such as a brick texture, etc. They are applied to a surface.
texture memory: Graphics memory dedicated to texture maps that are applied to 3D objects.
TFT: Thin Film Transistor. The essential component in any modern LCD notebook or flat-panel display.
thin coax: A type of network cabling that consists of a single wire surrounded by a metallic shield that cuts down on interference.
thin-film head: Pioneered in 1979 by IBM, the thin-film head used photolithographic techniques from semiconductor processing to make the head structures, including the magnetic core and coil. The added precision permitted designs that could read and write smaller bits.
3D engine: A group of software routines that render polygonal models overlaid with texture maps in order to create the illusion of a world in three dimensions.
3D picking: Picking out objects in a 3D space. Unlike 2D, which may be confined to simple rectangles on the screen, 3D buttons come in a variety of shapes, may mutually occlude each other, be animated, or warped around a complex 3D surface. 3D picking is the process of selecting a button or object in a 3D scene with the mouse or keyboard.
3D Positional Sound: Gives developers the ability to position sound in 3D instead of just left-to-right placement. The sound is often simulated and calculated with complex algorithms to determine how it will sound to most people. Major 3D APIs currently include DirectSound3D and Aureal3D.
1394: Also known as FireWire in the Macintosh market. A high-speed bus protocol that transfers data at up to 400Mbits per second. 1394 is a great interface for digital video peripherals and may someday be used for high-speed modems.
3DNow!: 21 new instructions that speed up 3D graphics and other tasks on x86-compatible processors. Introduced in 1998 with AMD's K6-2 processor, 3DNow! also has the support of chipmakers Cyrix (National Semiconductor) and Centaur Technology (IDT). Notably missing from this loose alliance is Intel, which is introducing its own Katmai new instructions (KNI) in early 1999.
threaded mount: Lens accessory that allows photographic filters to be screwed onto the front of the lens.
three-band parametric equalizer: A device used to equalize your digital video's audio.
3DNow!: A set of 21 instructions that speed up 3D graphics and other tasks on x86-compatible processors. The instructions essentially double a processor's floating-point power, which is integral for setting up polygons and lighting effects in 3D games. The games, however, must be coded to leverage the instructions; otherwise, they'll simply make calls to the processor's "normal" floating-point unit. Introduced in 1998 with AMD's K6-2 processor, 3DNow! also has the support of chipmakers Cyrix (National Semiconductor) and Centaur Technology (IDT).
three-finger salute: General computer slang for giving Windows 95 the bird or rebooting by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
Toaster/Flier: A nonlinear video-editing box developed by NewTek.
tosser: A badly burned gold disc. No amount of first aid can save it.
T1: A high-speed, dedicated phone line for digital communications. T1 lines are usually leased by businesses to link web servers or corporate networks to the Internet. Their speed is 1.5 megabits per second.
track-at-once: A method of writing CDs where the laser is stopped after every track (data or audio) has been written. This creates a gap between each two-to-three-second audio track.
transaction rate testing: A "transaction" consists of a request (read or write) followed by a reply (write or read) of the same or different size piece of data.
transfer rates: The speeds at which data can be transferred across a bus interface or network. Typically measured in megabits per second.
transform matrix: A set of numbers required to redraw a 3D object on the screen. When an object moves, or when the user's viewpoint of the object changes, the computer must redraw the object. It starts by recalculating the coordinate matrix for every vertex, using a process called matrix multiplication. Usually the transform matrix is a 4x4 arrangement of 16 numbers and the coordinate matrix is a 1x4 set of four numbers.
transforms: A DirectX transform is a plug-in for Chromeffects that allows independent developers to create their own custom special effects for Chromeffects web pages.
transparency: A term to describe a material's attributes as see-through, not opaque, so you can see objects behind the material.
trapping: Process of bleeding ink into the surrounding region to prevent bare paper from being exposed with misregistration during printing.
tree structure: A type of data structure in which each element is attached to one or more elements directly beneath it. The connections between elements are called branches.
triangle setup engine: The processing that occurs before a triangle can be rendered. It's a significant amount of processing. 3D hardware off-loads this from the CPU.
trilinear filtering: A method to make textures appear less pixelated. It involves applying a bilinear filter to two mip-maps on either side of a texture. The resulting filtered texture is then filtered again, hence the "tri" in trilinear. Trilinear filtering is processing intensive, but results in a smoother overall look.
trilinear mip-mapping: See trilinear filtering.
triple-buffering: A technique that allows a videocard to set up three mini buffers within frame-buffer memory. This allows multiple output frames to be rendered and processed. Double-buffering is a technique where one buffer is used while the second buffer is filled with information. Triple-buffering adds a third buffer to the mix.
TrueTrack Servo technology: An IBM patented servo technology that overcomes head-track misalignment errors due to spindle vibrations and small shifts in the disk position, both a direct result of design limits at high track density on hard drives with high RPMs.
TSR: Terminate and Stay Resident. A small DOS program that loads into system memory during startup.
12-volt: Phantom Condenser microphones require an external power source that is 12V to operate, while Dynamic mikes use a battery internally.
24-bit precision: Refers to the number of bits a process, such as z-buffer calculations and internal rendering, will be accurate. The higher the number of bits, the more accurate the calculations will be. This will result in the lower likelihood of graphics glitches appearing on screen. An inaccurate z-buffer calculation will result in dropped triangles or pixels, and will generally look yucky. See internal rendering.
twisted pair: A type of wiring used in network cabling. Twin thin-gauge
wires are twisted around each other to reduce interference from other twisted
pairs in the same cable--one wire carries data while the other absorbs interference.
ubergame: The catchphrase for the industry standard: "Highly anticipated."
UDF: (Universal Disk Format) A new file system used for CD and DVD rewritable technology although compatibility with ISO-9660 for both reading and writing is ensured. UDF is a file system for optical media developed by the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA). It overcomes the small partition sizes of ISO-9660 and can be read and written to on all the major operating systems. Full support for Unicode is included, allowing for all special characters and multilanguage applications. This means that a disc written on a Macintosh will finally be readable in a Windows machine. Long filename support is also supported with up to 255 ASCII characters or 127 Unicode characters. UDF also gets rid of the directory depth limitations of the older ISO-9660 technology and utilizes space far more efficiently.
Ultra ATA/66: Ultra Direct Memory Access. The fastest IDE protocol for connecting hard drives and removable storage devices. The UltraATA/66 bus has a total bandwidth of 66MB/sec. It's also known as Ultra DMA/66 and UDMA/66.
Ultra DMA: Ultra Direct Memory Access. The fastest IDE protocol for connecting hard drives and removable storage devices. Capable of 33Mbps throughput.
Ultra SCSI: Small Computer System Interface. Part of the SCSI-3 specification. Ultra SCSI is based on Fast SCSI-2 disk drive technology at double the clock speed, doubling the throughput from 10MB/sec to 20MB/sec on an 8-bit connection. It uses standard SCSI cables and connectors, and Ultra SCSI drives work with Fast/Wide host adapters.
Ultra 2: Doubles the total bus throughput of Ultra Wide SCSI from 40MB/sec to 80MB/sec, by increasing the clock rate to 40MHz.
Ultra Wide SCSI: One of the faster SCSI protocols; also known as SCSI-3. Supports 40Mbps transfer rates.
Ultra Wide SCSI: One of the faster SCSI protocols. Supports 40Mbps transfer rates.
uncompressed multistream: The ability to move multiple streams of uncompressed data through the graphics pipeline simultaneously.
unconverted: Typography made up of Postscript fonts that have not been converted into a raw, vector-based format.
underlined: The state of having a horizontal line immediately beneath a word or phrase that denotes said word or phrase is defined in the back of Maximum PC.
Unified Memory Architecture: An architecture that only moves data once into the system.
unified memory buffer: A videocard-specific term, this refers to the video processor's ability to use the local video memory for both frame-buffer and texture storage duties simultaneously. The local video-memory usage is controlled by the videocard architecture, with the frame/Z-buffer getting higher priority over texture storage. If there is not enough memory left after the frame/Z-buffer is configured, then the videocard chip (if it?s an AGP 1x/2x execute part) will use your system's memory for texture storage. Otherwise, the videocard gets the texture information from your hard drive, which is then sent into your local memory, which is then sent into the rendering pipeline for processing. This last process slows down 3D rendering considerably.
Upsample: The opposite of downsampling. A situation where data, usually graphics or sound, are given more data than originally planned and then presented to the end user. For graphics, this usually means putting more colors into a picture or bumping up the color depth from 64K colors to 16 million colors.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a computer on the Internet, as in "http://www.maximumpc.com". Actually, URLs are aliases for numerical IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, which are more difficult to remember and type in.
USB: Short for Universal Serial Bus. A new, faster, digital I/O port proposed by Intel for motherboards. Taking up far fewer resources, this port can act as a serial, parallel, mouse, keyboard, joystick, and even speaker interface. Unlike other communication ports on a PC, USB can be daisy-chained up to 127 devices.
user interface: A set of commands or menus through which a user communicates with a program or software application. Menu items could include such things as file access, editing/viewing functions, and user preferences.
UTP: Unshielded Twisted Pair. The most popular type of cable used with both 10BaseT and 100BaseTX connectors. It consists of pairs of copper wires with plastic casings that are twisted together and enclosed by an outer jacket. The twists improve transmission and help resist interference.
UV mapping: The act of defining placement of a bitmap or pattern on
a 3D object when rendered. "U" represents the horizontal coordinate, "V" the
vertical.
variable: A name in a program that represents a value stored in computer memory. The variable jan_sales might represent the dollar amount of company sales in January. Variables can be added, subtracted, multiplied, divided, and manipulated in numerous other ways. Variable names are chosen by programmers.
variable packet writing: Packets change size depending on the size of the data being written. This form of packet writing uses space on the disc more efficiently, and is more useful for CD-R. It's good for CD-RW if you plan to erase the entire disc (sequential erase).
variable-length packets: Packets of data are written to a CD-R or CD-RW disc with a variable length as their size varies with the size of the data being written. Variable-length packets are used primarily on CD-R discs, as it's not necessary to track and allocate free space when files are removed. This overhead makes it impossible to free up space on CD-RW drives. Files that are erased are made invisible, but the space is not actually freed up.
vector: Vector graphics are static graphics, animations, and fonts created as mathematical descriptions, consisting of a collection of lines, curves, and shapes.
vector-based: Graphics, text or images comprised of bezier curves. These images are resolution independent and scale to the resolution limits of the output device, as opposed to raster images (such as bitmaps) that are fixed resolution.
vertex: An end point that defines a corner point in 2D or 3D space.
VFAT: The Virtual File Allocation Table is used by Windows for Workgroups and Windows 95/98. It provides 32-bit Protected Mode access and was previously referred to as 32-bit File Access. It's faster than FAT and differs by supporting long filenames up to 255 characters.
viewports: When you look through a camera in a 3D scene it is called a viewport. You can have multiple viewports or cameras set up to make modeling or animation easier. Standard ones are top, right, front and perspective. The first three are orthographic (no perspective).
vertex-based animation: An explicit polygonal mesh to represent each keyframe.
VGA: VGA refers to your computer monitor. An NTSC monitor refers to your television monitor.
VGA-output: The ability to send your Video Graphics Array output or video out to an external monitor.
vertex movement: The act of changing a polygon's orientation by moving a vertex or end point which defines its corner point in 3D space.
VESA Media Interface: Video Electronics Standards Association. An industry trade group formed to codify the software interface for videocards.
virtual filespace: The sum total of all mass storage devices accessible from a computer. For computers not attached to networks, the filespace consists of local devices only. Networked computers have access to remote servers (and sometimes other clients) on LANs, WANs, or the Internet.
V.90: A 56K modem designed for connections that are digital at one end and only have one digital-to-analog conversion.
volumetric fogging: Atmospheric noise effect with depth, in addition to a defining plane. Frequently employed in 3D scenes to reduce polygon count and avoid "pop-up" scenery.
volumetric lighting: Lighting effect defined by a particle system. The patterns formed by the particles give the impression of light shining through a dense medium such as fog or smoke.
VPN: Virtual Private Network. A private computer network that spans large distances, up to global in scope. It's similar to a WAN, except it uses the public Internet for this purpose instead of private leased lines. VPN traffic is typically encrypted to prevent snooping.
VRAM: Video RAM used by graphics cards. Unlike conventional RAM, VRAM can be accessed simultaneously by two devices, which comes in handy for complex 3D graphics. It's more expensive than regular RAM, but can speed up graphics performance.
VRBL: Virtual Reality Behavior Language. An extension to VRML that adds assorted animation commands.
VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language. Hipsters know to pronounce it "Vermal." Also known as ISO/IEC 14772. Developed as an open standard to help sketch 3D environments across the Internet that can be seen through browsers, VRML is acknowledged by many to be dead or virtually useless now. VRML's adoption was hampered by slow ratification, bandwidth problems, and hiccups generally associated with any consortium. It doesn't help to have Microsoft secretly pushing its Chrome development.
V-sync: Vertical Synchronization. Also known as the vertical retrace signal. A term referring to the signal that redraws the vertical display of a CRT. How fast this signal is redrawn is referred to as the refresh rate. Usually given in Hertz (Hz), most videocards synchronize buffer swaps with the refresh rate, so framerates under these circumstances will never go past the refresh rate. Some videocards allow buffer swaps to happen without synching to the refresh rate. This will almost always result in faster framerate results, at the expense of visual quality. When a videocard renders without synching to the refresh rate, visual anomalies, such as tearing and shearing of the image, will occur.
VxD: Virtual Device Driver. A Windows driver that enables nitty-gritty interaction between hardware and the operating system's base kernel.