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</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">For the graphics device interface in <a href="Microsoft_Windows" title="Microsoft Windows">Windows</a>, see <a href="Graphics_Device_Interface" title="Graphics Device Interface">Graphics Device Interface</a>.</div>
<p>A <b>graphics device interface</b> is a subsystem that most operating systems use for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to <a href="Output_devices" class="mw-redirect" title="Output devices">output devices</a> such as <a href="Computer_display" class="mw-redirect" title="Computer display">monitors</a> and <a href="Computer_printer" class="mw-redirect" title="Computer printer">printers</a>. In most cases, the graphics device interface is only able to draw 2D graphics and simple 3D graphics, in order to make use of more advanced graphics and keep performance, an API such as <a href="DirectX" title="DirectX">DirectX</a> or <a href="OpenGL" title="OpenGL">OpenGL</a> needs to be installed.
</p><p>In <a href="Microsoft_Windows" title="Microsoft Windows">Microsoft Windows</a>, the GDI functionality resides in gdi.exe on 16-bit Windows, and gdi32.dll on 32-bit Windows.
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This article is issued from <a class="external text" title="Last edited on 2021-08-21" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?title=Graphics_device_interface&oldid=1039981905">Wikipedia</a>. The text is available under <a class="external text" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0</a> unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.
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