Audio/Video General Question

[AGENT_P6]

This may be a dumb question, but I'm a really curious person that likes to learn I don't know a whole lot about computer hardware and things like that, but this is just a random thought that came to my head as I was tinkering with my Catalyst Control Center to get the best Anti Aliasing, Resolution etc. while still keeping 60fps on Skyrim

My video card is the Radeon HD 6770 (although since updating the driver my computer now recognizes it as the 5700 series model...however apparently they are essentially almost the exact same. This is neither here nor there but just thought I'd mention the card to give this question some detail about things. Please bear with me and read my post thoroughly...at the end it will make sense why I'm asking this

So here's what I'm wondering (and I'll explain why I'm wondering after)

Does this video card (or perhaps video cards altogether) process AUDIO for games?

The reason I ask is this:

I have my computer hooked up to a 7.1 surround sound receiver via hdmi out from computer, hdmi in to surround sound (of course), and hdmi out from receiver to hdmi in on my lcd tv. I'm not sure what the native audio codec the developers decided to put into this game, but I imagine its 5.1.

What I'm getting at here is I want this game to be as visually pleasing as possible, with sturdy frame rates, reliable mouse and keyboard input response etc etc. and IF THE VIDEO CARD DOES HANDLE AUDIO PROCESSES, I wouldn't at all mind taking a load off of that overworked little Radeon ah heck by connecting my hdmi from computer straight to my tv, thus reducing the audio to only 2 channel (since my tv only has 2 speakers) and reducing the video card's workload. Especially since bethesda has never really put much emphasis on awesome audio in favor of making an extremely impressive sandbox game with extremely well done RPG elements, at least IMO, so its not like switching to 2 channel audio will make the game that much less enjoyable.

So essentially, I'm wondering if I can squeeze better visual quality out of this game by switching to only 2 channel audio. The reason I think the video card may indeed handle the audio components is simply because my hdmi output from my computer comes from my video card...since I know hdmi carries both video AND audio, it would make sense that the video card handles the audio...otherwise it should have a seperate video output for video from the video card, and a seperate output for the audio.

I understand there is the "realtek" audio thing...I don't know if this is software or actual hardware...perhaps if realtek is an actual hardware component, then the audio is just routed from there to the hdmi port to consolidate with the video stream? I'm not sure.

Anyway, that's my verbal diarrhea, poorly laid out question Essentially I'm asking: Will I get better visual quality in my favorite game by switching from 7 channel audio to 2 channel audio.

Note of Specs (since im too new to have a sig)
AMD Phenom II 1065T six core at 2.9GHz
12GB DDR3 1333 MHz
Radeon HD 6770 1GB GDDR5
Chipset AMD 785G
PSU 460Watt
or just refer to this link for specs:my computer

 

[LtGoonRush]

The audio processing is done by a Realtek audio chip on the card and not the GPU, so changing your audio settings won't affect graphical performance (except to the degree that the reduction in CPU consumption from audio processing affects things, which isn't much today). The Realtek chip on the videocard is basically the same chip providing the onboard audio on your motherboard. They put the chip on the videocard to get around the requirement of running an audio cable to the SPDIF header on the motherboard, which is how old nVidia cards did audio over HDMI.