During the installation process, Linux Mint detects your hardware and installs the required drivers for it. Some GNU/Linux distributions don't install or provide the proprietary drivers; however, Mint offers us the option to install these kinds of drivers. This is a good idea, because it makes life easier for novice users. The goal is to get all hardware working inside your computer, including multimedia support, monitors, and graphic cards.
Modern PCs include graphic cards manufactured from different brands that need proprietary drivers. If manufactures release source code, it's possible to compile it and to generate binary packages. This is part of the job of Mint developers, who provide software to allow us to use our computer with Linux Mint out of the box.
You can check if Mint provides additional drivers for your hardware. In order to do that, you can access Control Center, and click on the Additional Drivers button. Then a search process will start and...