 Typical VLB SVGA card | |
| Release date | August 31, 1987 |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Chips and Technologies 82c441, ET3000 |
| History | |
| Predecessor | Video Graphics Array |
| Successor | XGA |
Super VGA (SVGA) or Extended VGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards that extended IBM's VGA specification.[1][2]
When used as shorthand for a resolution, as VGA and XGA often are, SVGA refers to a resolution of 800 × 600.[3]
In the late 1980s, after the release of IBM's VGA, third-party manufacturers began making graphics cards based on its specifications with extended capabilities. As these cards grew in popularity, they began to be referred to as "Super VGA".
This term was not an official standard, but a shorthand for enhanced VGA cards which had become common by 1988.[4] The first cards that explicitly used the term were Genoa Systems's SuperVGA and SuperVGA HiRes in 1987.[5]
In November 1988, NEC Home Electronics announced its creation of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) to develop and promote a Super VGA computer display standard as a successor to IBM's proprietary VGA display standard. Super VGA enabled graphics display resolutions up to 800×600 pixels, compared to VGA's maximum resolution of 640×480 pixels—a 56% increase.[6]
Super VGA cards broke compatibility with the IBM VGA standard, requiring software developers to provide specific display drivers and implementations for each card their software could operate on. Initially, the heavy restrictions this placed on software developers slowed the uptake of Super VGA cards, which motivated VESA to produce a unifying standard, the VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE), first introduced in 1989,[7] to provide a common software interface to all cards implementing the VBE specification.[8]
Eventually, Super VGA graphics adapters supported innumerable modes.
The Super VGA standardized the following resolutions:[7]
SVGA uses the same DE-15 VGA connector as the original standard, and otherwise operates over the same cabling and interfaces as VGA.
Some early Super VGA manufacturers and some of their models, where available:
Nearly all VGA cards manufactured today exceed the VGA standard [...] in some significant way. These new and improved VGAs have been labeled Super VGAs, Extended VGAs or Advanced VGAs.
VGA was the last IBM graphics standard to which the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed, [...] It was officially followed by IBM's Extended Graphics Array (XGA) standard, but was effectively superseded by numerous slightly different extensions to VGA made by clone manufacturers, collectively known as Super VGA.
