ELI5 - What is a Graphics Card and how does it work?
A graphics card is a helper inside your computer that is really good at drawing pictures very fast. Its main job is to turn numbers into images that you see on your screen. Games, videos, and even moving windows all rely on it.
Your computer programs speak in math. They describe the world using shapes, points, colors, light, and movement. The graphics card takes all of that math and turns it into tiny colored dots called pixels. Those pixels make up the picture on your monitor. This happens many times every second so everything looks smooth. Inside the graphics card is a chip called the GPU. That stands for graphics processing unit. Think of it like a huge team of tiny workers. Each worker does a very small piece of math. One handles color. Another handles light. Another handles shadows. Because there are thousands of them working at the same time, the GPU can finish drawing a picture very quickly.
The graphics card also has its own memory called VRAM. This memory stores things like textures, colors, and shapes. Textures are the images that get wrapped around objects, like brick walls or skin in a game. Having this memory right next to the GPU means it does not have to ask the main computer memory for help all the time. That makes everything faster. Here is what happens when something needs to be drawn. A game or app asks the computer to show an image. The CPU, which is the main brain, sends instructions to the graphics card. The GPU then calculates where everything goes, how it should look, and what color each pixel should be. When it is done, it sends the finished picture to your screen. This process repeats over and over, many times per second.
A faster graphics card can draw more detailed pictures. It can handle better lighting, smoother motion, and higher screen resolutions. That is why games look nicer and run smoother on stronger cards. It is also why video editing, 3D design, and AI tasks use graphics cards. They all involve a lot of math done at the same time. In simple terms, the graphics card is a super fast artist. It takes boring math instructions and turns them into colorful moving images that your eyes can enjoy. Without it, everything would look slow, simple, and a bit dull.