Video Graphics Array (VGA) refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution itself. While this resolution was superseded in the personal computer market in the 1990s, it is becoming a popular resolution on mobile devices.
VGA was the last graphical standard introduced by IBM that the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed to, making it today (as of 2010) the lowest common denominator that almost all post-1990 PC graphics hardware can be expected to implement down to the lowest level of hardware registers, obviating the need for any device-specific firmware or driver software (while all VGA compatible hardware has on-board firmware as well, the only standardized API of that firmware was created for 16-bit real mode and can't easily be used by newer 32- or 64-bit operating systems). For example, the Microsoft Windows splash screen, in versions prior to Windows Vista, appears while the machine is still operating in VGA mode, which is the reason that this screen always appears in reduced resolution and color depth. Windows Vista and newer versions can make use of the VESA BIOS Extension support of newer graphics hardware to show their splash screen in a higher resolution than VGA allows.
VGA was officially followed by IBM's Extended Graphics Array (XGA) standard, but it was effectively superseded by numerous slightly different extensions to VGA made by clone manufacturers that came to be known collectively as Super VGA.
Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video including 1080p and higher. While the VGA transmission bandwidth is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, there can be picture quality degradation depending on cable quality and length. How discernible this quality difference is depends on the individual's eyesight and the display; when using a DVI or HDMI connection, especially on larger sized LCD/LED monitors or TVs, quality degradation, if present, is prominently visible. Blu-ray playback at 1080p is possible via the VGA analog interface, if Image Constraint Token (ICT) is not enabled on the Blu-ray disc.
Read more about Video Graphics Array: The VGA Color Palette, Programming Tricks
Famous quotes containing the words video and/or array:
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Any one who knows what the worth of family affection is among the lower classes, and who has seen the array of little portraits stuck over a labourer’s fireplace ... will perhaps feel with me that in counteracting the tendencies, social and industrial, which every day are sapping the healthier family affections, the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world.”
—Macmillan’s Magazine (London, September 1871)