HD monitor, performance and connection options

[BonzaiDuck]

What are the differences in performance I might expect from using a DVI[gfx]-to-VGA[monitor] connection with a 1920x1080p HD monitor?

It's embarrassing to explain this. I'm driving two "monitors" including my HT/AVR/HDTV. The second is a rather old Viewsonic "VX-2235" LCD -- 1680x1050. I've had this HD 1920x1080p monitor sitting on the monitor stand bolted to one side of my desk -- more or less unused for a couple years. I'd previously used it for the purpose of HDTV before I bought my current HDTV.

I should've replaced the Viewsonic back then with the Hanns-G. My constraints: I have a 20-year-old 4-port Belkin Omni-View PS/2 KVM. It still "works for me." It only provides VGA ports for all gfx connections.

The Hanns-G has HDMI, DVI and VGA inputs.

 

[KingFatty]

It's very likely that in a blind test, you couldn't tell the difference, whether you connected via VGA, DVI, or DVI-VGA adapter.

I don't fully understand your hesistancy - go for it and hook up that 1080p display using the VGA or whatever, get back your dual-display enjoyment.

Wait, are you saying that you are trying to switch between one or the other display at a time using the KVM? That's a pain, just run both displays at the same time for dual display extended desktop, where each display would run at its native resolution to increase productivity. That way you don't have to mirror them.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It's very likely that in a blind test, you couldn't tell the difference, whether you connected via VGA, DVI, or DVI-VGA adapter.

I don't fully understand your hesistancy - go for it and hook up that 1080p display using the VGA or whatever, get back your dual-display enjoyment.

Wait, are you saying that you are trying to switch between one or the other display at a time using the KVM? That's a pain, just run both displays at the same time for dual display extended desktop, where each display would run at its native resolution to increase productivity. That way you don't have to mirror them.

These days, I almost feel retarded. Like I said, I should've done this much earlier.

There are three PCs under my desk now: the sig-rig, my WHS-2011 box, and my "strictly business" machine -- a spare. The spare E8400 775 system was allocated for that purpose in the event I had any problems with the sig, troubleshooting, whatever. To the point: It's a 4-port KVM switch for these three machines.

The sig-rig with "HTPC functionality" also connects directly to the HT/AVR/HDTV. For access with the keyboard to "desktops" I'd been using this older LCD monitor. I can help the fam-damn-ily if I just replace a smaller viewsonic upstairs with this one, and use the Hanns-G for these systems.

Clutter, clutter, parts, peripherals everywhere. This poor HD monitor, just hoisted up in the air right now, not plugged into anything. Tsk, tsk, tsk. . . . :\

And -- really -- games will be better with the HD monitor, or I can play them on the TV.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Dang!! One . . . dead . . . pixel!! One dead pixel . . .

But overall -- better.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I learned (happily), that most Haswell chipsets / boards, will support HDMI audio output over the DVI-D (or DVI-I?) port. I don't think that this was true during the 775 era, though.

I recall seeing some comments on some help forums, complaining that their 775-era chipset's DVI port, when connected to a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, would register on an HDTV as an HDMI connection, rather than DVI, but it wouldn't pass audio properly. Meaning, that the display monitor / HDTV, because it believed that an audio signal was present, would not switch to the analog stereo audio input jack to connect to the speakers. So no audio.

I'm glad that they fixed that for the Haswell generation. I wonder, actually, in which generation this was fixed. It would be interesting to test.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I learned (happily), that most Haswell chipsets / boards, will support HDMI audio output over the DVI-D (or DVI-I?) port. I don't think that this was true during the 775 era, though.

I recall seeing some comments on some help forums, complaining that their 775-era chipset's DVI port, when connected to a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, would register on an HDTV as an HDMI connection, rather than DVI, but it wouldn't pass audio properly. Meaning, that the display monitor / HDTV, because it believed that an audio signal was present, would not switch to the analog stereo audio input jack to connect to the speakers. So no audio.

I'm glad that they fixed that for the Haswell generation. I wonder, actually, in which generation this was fixed. It would be interesting to test.

Well, the discussion has drifted, but it's fine with me . . .

Couple months ago, I was experimenting with my LG HDTV, the (old) Viewsonic 1680x1050 LCD and this . . Hanns-G with the dead pixel. The latter had a DVI-to-HDMI cable -- for the HDMI port of the monitor. And it passed through the two channel sound to the Hanns-G speakers. I wasn't even trying to investigate that angle; I only noticed it working. It was my socket-1155 system -- the newest I have.

One dead pixel isn't much of a flaw -- but that's my opinion. It can only be seen at "black-screen boot-time."

Especially though, if folks want to take note -- THE FOLLOWING:

I had posted a thread some few months ago about setting the HDTV Media Center "Window" mode to cover the screen so I could access the desktop with mouse on the "desktop" monitor and avoid extra mouse-clicks, drags-and-drops when turning my back on the TV. MC wouldn't remain with the same window-size settings between restarts or MC startups, and I'd have to stretch the window again every time I started MC.

It turns out that a multi-monitor setup with different resolutions -- in my case, 1920x1080 and 1680x1050 -- somehow creates this problem. It disappears when both monitors are set to the same HD resolution. That's all it was . . . So once I stretch the MC window so that it's border is only visible on all four edges of the HDTV, it keeps that window-size for all time. I can double-click the "green button" to change to "full-screen," but there's apparently no drawback to running MC in "windowed" mode . . .