Performance Impact of multiple outputs

[Kuuwahi]

This post spans off from another post which can be found here

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18666519

Basically I have an A/V receiver for my 5.1 surround sound which only supports HDMI and I'm looking to upgrade to a 144hz 1440p monitor to which makes HDMI void and display port seems best.

However I will require split double output from the gpu to achieve this.

I will quote my previous post.

there are different hdmi revisions...hdmi 1.4b can do 120hz for 1080p i understand...need to check your av receiver hdmi standard (and your monitors)

my A/V receiver is HDMI 1.4a but this makes no difference as its still not 144Hz nor 1440p

HDMI only works if video is present. Audio cannot be sent alone.

Seems so, I discovered this... What a poor piece of technology

Option 1)
Duplicate the display from Monitor 1 to the A/V Receiver.
How will duplicating the display effect the performance ?


Option 2)
Extend the desktop to the A/V Receiver to which will only display a wallpaper
How will this effect performance ?

 

[Kuuwahi]

Ah right,

So I should be able to play games on monitor 1 and duplicate the output to the A/V Receiver for the purpose of audio and have no dip in performance.

I'm also curious to how this works and that there is no performance alterations as it will be pushing 2 displays instead of 1.

How would this work if my main monitor is 2560x1440p and the A/V Receiver is only 1080p? Would it automatically downscale to 1080p? Not that it makes a difference as I will only be using it for audio.

Another note, if I decided to upgrade to triple monitor setup is it still possible in doing this? For example just duplicating the centre monitor?

 

[Kuuwahi]

Well looks like my solution to my 5.1 surround sound is sorted.

Thank you kindly for your help.

 

[Kuuwahi]

When you have a monitor connected via one output and an AV receiver connected via hdmi, the AV receiver will show up as an audio device, you don't even need to set it up as a video output you can configure it purely as the default audio device, it will have zero impact on video performance

Ah wicked, I think I will use the HDMI out on the receiver to go to a capture card on the 2nd PC for Streaming my Games.

 

[Kuuwahi]

Here's my experiance:

resolution needs to be the same on both outputs if you are duplicating. so your amp will need to support 2560x1440 or it will likely drop the output on both displays to 1080p. don't know if the frequency needs to be the same or not, i think it does...

AMD cards need a video output to enable audio output, or at least everything up to the 7970 does. not tested the r290 etc.
my nVidia 970 doesnt need a video output to putput audio as far as i remember, however my 970's available audio tend to sometimes reassign themselves and every now and again i have to reset the default audio device. annoying.

In regards to the resolution, as far as I'm aware HDMI 1.4a can carry 1440p so That won't be an issue. Will the refresh rate cause an issue ?

 

[Kuuwahi]

Not from my experience.

If the A/V receiver uses pass through to connect to the TV then it will show as another display, even if you don't want it to.

There's also a heat impact from having 3x monitors connected to one card (certainly on Nvidia anyway)

With my TitanX if I have my monitor (DisplayPort), 4k TV (HDMI 2.0) and A/V receiver (HDMI audio) connected at once my idle temps go from 30°C to 60°C.

Its annoying, the only way I can think to get around it is to upgrade to an A/V receiver that will do HDMI 2.0 pass through but not many around do that yet.

I only have 1 monitor at the moment and don't mind sticking to just one. surround monitors were a future option. Also planning to water cool in the future.

When I want to use my av receiver as just audio I use optical cable from sound card.
If watching something I exchange the display.

I can use optical but research showed that optical is inferior in quality to HDMI.

 

[Kuuwahi]

As I have previously worked in the music industry for some years and also studied music technology at college then university, it is safe to say I am aware of the clarity or there lack of when it comes to audio

 

[Kuuwahi]

james.miller, I wasn't talking about lag, but this certainly could be a problem. Likewise losing multichannel would be a problem. Would need testing with the OPs equipment I suppose.

Off topic: I'm very sceptical that you can hear the difference between identical material transported over 16/44.1 compared to 24/192. If you studied music tech you should know better.

If you've passed a double blind test then you literally have superhuman hearing (bat/dolphin level hearing). Anything less is worthless.

I was referring to noticing the difference between 192kbps to cd quality.

So the narky comment about "if you studied music tech you should know better." was uncalled for.