Difference Between VGA and SVGA


There are different standards developed by different organizations to display the content over various display devices. VGA and SVGA are two such standards that are used for displaying the video data on a suitable display device. VGA supports videos and images of smaller resolution, whereas SVGA supports relatively large resolution videos and images.

Read this article to find out more about VGA and SVGA standards and how they are different from each other.

What is VGA?

VGA stands for Video Graphics Arrays. It is a standard first developed by IBM to display video on a display screen. VGA offers high resolution with 256 colors at a time, which means it enables to conduct the video data to display at maximum 256 colors at a time.

VGA consists of a 6−Bit digital to analog converter to convert analog red, green, and blue signals. VGA supports 640×480 video resolution.

What is SVGA?

SVGA stands for Super Video Graphics Arrays. SVGA is an extended version of VGA. SCGA was developed by NEC Home Electronics. It offers relatively higher resolution with more colors. SVGA can function in two modes, i.e., "800×600" and "1024×480". Sometimes, SVGA is also referred to as Enhanced VGA or Ultra VGA.

The major advantages of using SVGA over normal VGA include the following− it has high memory utilization, high resolution, and more colors at a time. However, SVGA requires a supplementary memory.

Difference between VGA and SVGA

The important differences between VGA and SVGA are highlighted in the following table −

S.No. VGA SVGA
1. VGA can be expanded as Video Graphics Arrays. SVGA can be expanded as Super Video Graphics Arrays.
2. VGA was developed by IBM. SVGA was developed by NEC Home Electronics.
3. VGA supports small resolution videos and images. SVGA supports large resolution videos and images.
4. VGA has a maximum resolution of 640×480. SVGA provides a maximum resolution of 1024×460.
5. VGA has memory of up to 256k. SVGA has memory of up to 1024k.
6. VGA doesn’t include supplementary memory. SVGA includes supplementary memory.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is clear that VGA supports a maximum resolution of 640×480 pixels, while SVGA supports two resolutions, i.e. 800×600 pixels and 1024×480 pixels. Another key difference between VGA and SVGA is that VGA uses a 6−bit digital to analog converter to convert analog red, green, and blue signals to produce a screen color of 256 colors.

VGA was the original standard for displaying video on personal computers, while SVGA is an improved version of VGA that offers higher resolution. Note that VGA and SVGA are older technologies that are no longer used on modern computers. Most modern computers use HD (High Definition) or UHD (Ultra High Definition) standards that offer significantly higher resolution and improved image quality compared to VGA and SVGA.

Updated on: 21-Dec-2022

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