Textures and Pipelines.... huh?

[TigerShard]

When reading about video cards, I always run into the discussion about texture pipelines and stuff similar to that. Can anyone take the time to explain this? Any webpages out there that can explain about all the different features of video cards? (I haven't really looked for any) Thanks

-TigerShard

 

[arod324]

Pipelines are like "highways", meaning that the more you have, the more cars you can move along. The "bandwidth" is how "wide" the highway is (most cards are 128 bits, but some lower cards only have a 64 bit bandwidth). Most current cards nowadays can process more than one texture per pipeline. For example the Geforce2 has 4 pipelines and it can process two textures per pipeline, meaning that it can make two textures per pipeline, at a time.

 

[BFG10K]

For example the Geforce2 has 4 pipelines and it can process two textures per pipeline,

The GTS has 4 pixel pipelines and 2 texture pipelines.

meaning that it can make two textures per pipeline, at a time

Or more accurately, it can render two texels per clock cycle.