Nostalgia sets in when gamers reminisce about the 1993 release of id Software's DOOM(tm). Its cutting-edge graphics in the three-dimensional world made DOOM one of the hottest games of its era. The first-person shooter revolutionized and helped pave the way for game developers to stretch the imagination, as well as push beyond their limitations, to provide the best PC games available. DOOM used unseen images and created a sense of realism that had not been experienced at that time. It made graphics on a PC truly important. The "DOOM Boom" propelled gaming into the upper echelons of what your PC can do with graphics, and now, it seems that we are in the midst of another graphics surge.

Graphics are once again defining an era. With 3D graphics the norm in the gaming industry, developers over the last few years have been pushing each other competitively to come out with the latest, most innovative graphics cards. ATI and NVIDIA, specifically, have battled each other to gain the high ground in the graphics cards market. Their pursuit of the competitive edge has made graphics cards one of the fastest developing components for the PC.

Scalable Link Interface, or SLI as it is more commonly known, helped propel gaming graphics into what we know them as today. With SLI, the idea to bring two (or more) graphics processing units to share the workload enabled the PC to render 3D graphics at a much faster rate. SLI greatly enhanced visuals without sacrificing frame rate. Before SLI, gaming enthusiasts that wanted to crank up all of their settings to enhance gameplay had difficulty keeping the picture quality crisp and smooth. SLI nullified most of these problems with its ability to enable one card to render 50 percent of the screen, while a second card completed the other half. Now, enthusiasts that wish to maximize their settings can do so while maintaining high frame rates.

Also helping the cause is the advancement in PCI Express (PCI-E). Connectivity has a large part in the graphics output, and with a slow connection, high performance graphic configurations are rendered ineffective. The original PCI allowed for a maximum, "one-lane" connection from the graphics card. AGP broadened that scope and allowed for faster communication with four times the output of the PCI. Upgrades progressed as PCI-E increased to a 16-lane output. As the communication between the cards and the motherboard improved, the development of the graphics cards followed suit.

Graphics cards and game developers have a symbiotic relationship. Gaming drives where graphics cards are headed, but the game developers can't write code for elaborate games without knowing the card's capabilities. Currently, gaming is once again steering the graphics card designers in the right direction - this time, a revolutionary one.

The DirectX 10 (DX 10)-based graphics cards are here, and those who believe the transition from DirectX 9 might be just a footnote in gaming history are sadly mistaken. DirectX 10 is the next generation in how games are created; it's what industry experts are calling, "a giant leap forward." The DX 9 games were officially tapped out; their limits stretched to the end on what you could maximize out of the card. When talking about the transition from DX 8 to DX 9, gaming enthusiasts might not even recall the transition because the changes were minimal compared to the advancements we will see in the latest upgrade. With games created during the DX 10 era, gamers will see photo-realistic images during gameplay - something gamers have not experienced before. It will be hard to determine whether the screen you are looking at is a snapshot or the actual game. With DX 9, you may not be able to see every blade of grass because the technology in the card does not have the capabilities to produce the image as clear as it could be. With the DX 10, there's no difficulty in seeing every blade of grass. The lighting and shadow effects will make the user do a double-take. Crysis(tm), an EA Games and Crytek Studios development, was produced with DX 10 capability in mind. With this sci-fi first-person shooter already receiving the hype it deserves, expect Crysis to help truly launch the new graphics revolution the way DOOM did several years ago.

With the new technology available to the masses, it will require game developers to push further to compete for dominance in visual capabilities. By 2008, game developers will no longer be creating award-winning games with the thought of users running it on a graphics card with DX 9 capabilities or lower. Creations for the DX 10 will be the main focus.

Although many of these high-end capabilities are developed for the desktop, all of the industry leading technology rolls over to the notebooks within a matter of months. Currently, new desktops rolling off the assembly line are being outfitted with DX 10-based cards. As more and more enthusiasts transition to notebooks, they expect similar performance to what the desktops can do, especially in graphics. A few gaming notebooks have emerged with dual-graphics cards enabled by NVIDIA's SLI. Also, these same notebooks come equipped with 1GB of graphic memory, pumping games out at the highest resolution without butchering frame rate. These models are crushing single-card notebooks by improving clarity and rendering by 100 percent, while standing toe-to-toe with the majority of desktops found at local retail stores. As interest in notebook gaming grows, graphics cards manufacturers will be a driving force in raising the level of notebook gaming expectations, as its capabilities begin to resemble a desktop.

In this gaming generation, the industry's defining characteristic will be graphics, similar to the mid-1990s. The industry probably won't see another "DOOM Boom" like this for sometime. For now, game developers will concentrate on enhancing realism with all of the advancements in the DX 10 and other available technology. The maturation process in games and graphics cards will set in. The next stage of growth in the gaming industry will be in artificial intelligence and physics. If gaming enthusiasts are old enough to remember the emergence of DOOM, then they know what this generation is in for. They've already cranked up their PC settings, lowered the lights, pumped up the volume and are holding on as graphics move through uncharted gaming territory!