Two monitors seperate room - one GFX card

[Nova Swing]

Hi all, I'm looking for some help to hopefully a simple question.

Can I run two monitors off a single gfx card, but have the screen repeat rather than have a bigger desktop? I'm pretty sure you can set different resolutions for two monitors from my research so far so I think the answer is yes, but here's the scenario...

I have PC in dining room but lounge TV is literally other side of the wall. Instead of building an HTPC I'm wondering why I don't just drill a whole in the wall and run an HDMI/DVI cable and USB hub (for Mouse and KB) cable through it and voila, I have my PC in the lounge.

However, I don't want to use a switching box for the video feed. I want to just turn the PC on and either use it on the PC monitor or TV in lounge.

So I guess my question is, if I am using, say the HDMI slot and DVI slot on a graphics card, does it push the signal through both at the same time, or will it only 'feed' one screen at a time? If one or the other my plan won't work as I can't be arsed to change cables depending on what screen I'll be using...

Hope that's clear, and if it helps the GFX will likely be a 970 Strix which has two DVI and one hdmi (I think).

I probably made the question much longer than it needs to be but I wanted to describe exactly what I need.

Thanks!

PS, great playing with you guys during the Kill Roy event

 

[RobCrezz]

AFAIK you would need a HDMI signal splitter as when in duplicate mode any 3d accelerated applications/games will only display on the primary screen (last time I checked).

 

[egnshane]

Yeah you can do this, you can set the screens to mirror but you need the resolution to be the same on both monitors for it to look nice.

 

[Scottland]

Yeah as above, it should work fine but resolutions will need to be the same I think.


Win + P shortcut allows you to select what mode to select (i.e. duplicate).

 

[Nova Swing]

Resolution is the issue as TV is 37 " and I sit about 8ft away so can't have same res as the 24" monitor. I read on the Mircosoft site that you can have two different resolutions though, or is it not the case if you are having two outputs from the gfx card?

Could I have different resolutions if I used a splitter? Are HDMI splitters any good? I used to have VGA splitter which was awful, it produced an offset ghost screen. I guess HDMI being digital is better though.

 

[Fleshwerk]

Bring the pc to the tv and test it with just an hdmi cable before you buy anything

 

[Nova Swing]

Have done that, PC works fine on TV through HDMI (MSI 7970 at moment).

 

[meldarthx]

You can also get wireless HDMI for about 100-150 pounds. Plug it in; sends a signal 5ghz range and you can be up to 30-60 feet away. can be used with sky boxes; xbox360; pcs.....there is a slight latency added with it; but nothing bad at all.

That's another option if you don't want to be drilling and trying to hide cables. I put one in CEO's office with 4k tv to run meetings off engineer's laptops.....powered off usb slot; and the receiver can be hidden back of the TV.

Downside.....for a good one it can be a little spendy.

 

[Varsh]

For £150 I could get a Raspberry Pi and an external 1TB and run it that way, in fact a hell of a lot cheaper than £150 too.

 

[Scottland]

What are the 2 resolutions in questions? Are they both not 1080p?

In 'Extend' mode you can have different resolutions, but natively in windows if you want 'Duplicate' mode it'll force the resolution to be the same. You may be able to get around it with some other software or 'hacks' but I'm not sure this would be optimum.


Why the need to mirror anyway?

 

[Nova Swing]

Problem with wireless is that I'd have to drill a hole for the USB Hub anyway and the fact that it's not perfect in terms of latency puts me off.

The reason I want to do it is two-fold; I want to use PC for video streaming (Netflix and my own films) but also to play games.

I posted a few days back in General Hardware as I was going to try building a PC for the lounge but it looks like a decent spec mini-ITX will be around £900 (one that can play games on high settings).

So it got me thinking that a little DIY could save me a lot of money as I already have a good gaming machine.

Alas, if I can't mirror at different res I think it's a non-starter.

Monitor is 1920 x 1080 and the best res I found for TV was something like 1280 x 780. If I view TV at monitor res everything is just tiny, not really useable.

 

[Scottland]

Unless you need to watch/use both screens at the same time then just use Win + P to switch which screen is turned on (PC Screen only, 2nd Screen only).

 

[Nova Swing]

No don't need both screens at same time, it will e one or the other.

I think the problem I have is that in Windows both screens need to be same res if mirroring/duplicating but the TV is no good in 1920 x 1080. So the idea seems like a non-starter as I don't want to change res every time I turn computer on depending on what screen I'll be using.

This may be a bit leftfield or even riduculous, but can you run two completely separate graphics cards in a single PC? Not Crossfire or SLI, but one feeding one screen and the other the other screen (but only 'using' one at a time of course).

Reading that back it does seem a stupid question as the CPU would still need to manage both cards I guess...

 

[Scottland]

No don't need both screens at same time, it will e one or the other.

I think the problem I have is that in Windows both screens need to be same res if mirroring/duplicating but the TV is no good in 1920 x 1080. So the idea seems like a non-starter as I don't want to change res every time I turn computer on depending on what screen I'll be using.

This may be a bit leftfield or even riduculous, but can you run two completely separate graphics cards in a single PC? Not Crossfire or SLI, but one feeding one screen and the other the other screen (but only 'using' one at a time of course).

Reading that back it does seem a stupid question as the CPU would still need to manage both cards I guess...

Windows will switch res for you, you'll just have to change the res in game if you switch from pc to TV.

 

[Nova Swing]

Ok thanks Scotland. Think I'll drag PC and monitor to the lounge and test exactly how it works with two displays.

 

[meldarthx]

Problem with wireless is that I'd have to drill a hole for the USB Hub anyway and the fact that it's not perfect in terms of latency puts me off.

The reason I want to do it is two-fold; I want to use PC for video streaming (Netflix and my own films) but also to play games.

I posted a few days back in General Hardware as I was going to try building a PC for the lounge but it looks like a decent spec mini-ITX will be around £900 (one that can play games on high settings).

So it got me thinking that a little DIY could save me a lot of money as I already have a good gaming machine.

Alas, if I can't mirror at different res I think it's a non-starter.

Monitor is 1920 x 1080 and the best res I found for TV was something like 1280 x 780. If I view TV at monitor res everything is just tiny, not really useable.

£900 what the heck did you speck? I just built for meeting room mini ITX system with AMD 7600; 8 gigs of ram; 256 ssd; with psu 120w; 1080p wasn't good with near games; but everything ran fine at 720p.....world of tanks med settings was ave 35 frames a min.

that cost 375ish; parts are cheaper now on somethings could up the APU; spend 400 and have a solid mini ITX system.

Why would you have to drill for a hole for usb hub? curious. latency I've found from them is nothing major; we're talking about 6ms added roughly; but as I said only down side is they are still a bit spendy.


If you don't mine running the cables...then all good.....

 

[Nova Swing]

The mini-ITX build would have been gaming as well as movies/TV, so 970 Strix + Z97 MB and i5 4690 in a Coolermaster Elite case (will fit perfectly in TV stand). I play BF4, RaceRoom and Assetto Corsa mostly so it needs to be pretty well specced.

Re USB Hub, I find wireless Keyboards and mice don't work well through walls and besides, I'd need the hole to run the HDMI cable. I'd also want to add a USB remote for XBMC or whatever I'll use for movies etc, which generally being IR definitely wouldn't work through a wall.

Still haven't decided if I'll get a whole new PC or try the single PC/two screens route (preferable as it will save loads of money!). I'll see how it all fits together as I can actually move it all into a single room to test it out. If no go re res/convenience then I think it will be a new mini-ITX machine, which at the end of the day is no bad thing