1. The Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) interface is a platform bus specification that enables high performance graphics capabilities, especially 3D, on PCs at mainstream price points. This interface specification will enable 3D applications, which not only require sufficient information storage so that the monitor image may be refreshed, but also enough storage to support z-buffering and alpha blending. It will also enable texture mapping to run faster and to look better.  Back

2. The Accelerated Graphics Port provides a high-speed pathway between the PC's graphics controller and system memory. This pathway enables the graphics controller to executre texture maps directly from system memory rathger than caching them in its limited local video memory.  Back

3. The Accelerated Graphics Port interface will enable high-performance 3D graphics capabilities to users of volume-priced mainstream PCs. In addition, users of high performance platforms will see better 3D graphics performance.  Back

4. The Accelerated Graphics Port expands current 3D capabilities to new levels of visual realism and provides high performance 3D capability to a much larger market of customers at lower incremental cost.  Back

5. PCI will continue to be the main, general purpose, system I/O bus. The Accelerated Graphics Port interface has been designed specifically for dedicated use by graphics controllers, and is not intended to replace PCI.  PCI will migrate to faster and wider versions as the bandwidth needs of PCI I/O functions exceed the capabilities of the 133MB/s, 32-bit, 33MHz version.  The Accelerated Graphics Port is designed specifically for point-to-point graphics components. It is physically separated from the PCI bus and it uses a separate connector.  Back

6. No.  The goals of UMA are very different from the Accelerated Graphics Port.  UMA was an attempt to move the entire frame buffer from a graphics subsystem card to main PC memory to reduce cost.  The goal of the Accelerated Graphics Port interface specification is to make it possible for PCs to support high performance 3D graphics capabilities.  The Accelerated Graphics Port architecture assumes that there is still dedicated graphics frame buffer memory. In the Accelerated Graphics Port interface specification, main memory is specifically used for advanced 3D features, such as textures, alpha buffers, and z-buffers.  This memory can be "reclaimed" by the OS and applications after being used.  This eliminates the performance loss that UMA exhibits by requiring allocation of main memory at boot-up time, leaving less memory for the operating system.  The Accelerated Graphics Port specification allows for dynamic allocation (and reallocation) of main memory, making it much more flexible.  Back