What Is Wide Extended Graphics Array (WXGA)?
You may be wondering what in the world WXGA is and how it got its name. Well, WXGA is a graphics standard that has a display resolution of 1366×768 pixels and a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. This is the widescreen version of the XGA standard of 1024×768 pixels with an aspect ratio of 4:3. The vertical resolution of XGA was kept intact, and 342 pixels were added to the horizontal resolution, which resulted in the odd-looking value of 1366. Don't worry if you're still confused. You'll get used to it! XGA was the first resolution that took off, but it had limitations. It only used 1024 pixels across the screen, and each pixel had to be drawn separately, a time-consuming process that led to slow graphics processing speed. WXGA was a response to this problem. It used more pixels than XGA but didn't require a significant signaling change (apart from needing a faster pixel clock). This meant no significant technology change was required, and display manufacturers only had to cut a slightly wider LCD panel to accommodate the change and provide a more comprehensive screen, which was gaining popularity. Other variants included 1360×768, which provided a significantly lower memory requirement than over 1 MB (1024.5 KB per channel) for the 1366 variant to just 1020 KB, a value slightly lower than the entire 1024 KB of a whole megabyte. This inversely meant that VRAM chips used in smaller resolution displays can still be used to keep manufacturing costs lower because it fits precisely into that chip category rather than having to move to the following larger value chips of 2 MB or 4 MB, which would cost significantly more and produce only a very slight and unnoticeable difference in pixels.
Related Terms by IT Infrastructure
Join Our Newsletter
Get weekly news, engaging articles, and career tips-all free!
By subscribing to our newsletter, you're cool with our terms and conditions and agree to our Privacy Policy.