ATI Technologies RADEON X1950 XTX - Manual (Page 71)

65
beams activate separate red, green, and blue values in various strengths in
order to produce a colored image.
Dashboard
The dashboard is the part of the Catalyst ™ Control Center used to display a
graphical representation of the features available in installed ATI hardware
and software. The dashboard can be used to access all of the aspects (sets
of related graphical features) available on a graphics card. The dashboard
is only available in Advanced view and Custom view which is aimed at
more experienced users.
Direct 3D ®
Part of Microsoft ® ’s DirectX API designed for rendering 3D graphics on
Windows ® systems. It provides software developers with low-level access
to functions on graphics cards, providing the type of performance
necessary for intensive 3D applications such as games.
DirectX
A Microsoft ® technology, DirectX is an API that provides programmers
with direct access to low-level hardware functions for games and other
high-performance 3D applications.
Dithering
A computer graphics technique that takes advantage of the human eye’s
tendency to mix two colors that are adjacent to each other to produce
smooth boundary transitions. Dithering adds intermediate color values
between two or more boundaries, producing smoother, more natural look
to 2D images or 3D objects.
Dot pitch
Dot pitch specifies the sharpness of a monitor’s display. It is measured in
millimeters (mm) and is the distance between the individual phosphor sub-
pixels in a CRT display or cells of the same color within an LCD display.
The smaller the number, the sharper the image. The most common dot
pitches for monitors range from .24 mm to .31 mm. Also, if a monitor with
a .24 mm dot pitch is set to its highest possible resolution, the pixel size will
equal the dot pitch. If the monitor is set to lower resolutions, the pixels will
be comprised of multiple dots.