RAMDAC

A RAMDAC ( R Andom A ccess M emory D igital / A nalogue C onverter ) is a chip on the video card , the conversion of digital (video memory) to analog image signals ( monitor is responsible). It is therefore only required in connection with analog screens that are connected with VGA, for example.

In addition to a small static memory in which color tables are stored, it contains three D / A converters (for one of the primary colors red, green, blue). Each of these D / A converters converts the digital color value for a basic color with the help of the color table into an analog voltage value that the monitor can understand.

The RAMDAC is implemented either on the graphics chip or as an external component.

The main feature is the pixel frequency, i.e. the number of pixels that the RAMDAC can convert per second. The higher this speed, the higher the resolution and / or the refresh rate that can be selected. In addition, the slope of the output signal is also important, it determines the image sharpness.