Introduction to Graphic Port

AGP stands for the Accelerated graphic port that is used to provide the interface for the 3D graphics applications.  AGP are very commonly found in the computers.  AGP was first introduced by the Intel Corporation in 1996.  AGP is based on the PCI technology.  AGP interfaces enable the 3D graphics applications to display quickly.  AGP supports the texture mapping, z-buffering, and alpha blending that are required for the 3D image display. 

The data transfer rate with the AGP is significantly better than with the PCI video cards.  AGP has the dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphic controllers can directly access the main memory.  To use the AGP in your system the following requirements should be fulfilled.

• The motherboard must be equipped with the AGP bus slot.
• The chipset must support AGP.
• The operating system must support the AGP.

Despite of providing the better performance to the 3D applications the AGP also provides some optional features of texturing, pipelining, throughput and sideband addressing.

AGP allows the systems to store the texture maps in the computer’s memory which makes the more space available and provides the faster access.  AGP’s channel is 32 bits wide and runs at 66 MHZ.  AGP provides the bandwidth that is 4 times more than the PCI.