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50" HD plasma TV. Wonderful speakers. What's not to like? My TV has DVI and HDMI inputs, my reciever has a wide array of inputs for sound...how would I need to go about connecting my pc to them for gaming purposes? Would I just need to get a GPU with HDMI and a sound card with HDMI to hook up to my TV? or is it more complicated that that? It seems like it would be very easy but it'd be a several hundred dollar upgrade for me, and I don't want to blow my money before I double check this. It'd be at full 1080p resolution if I can, so I'm guessing something potent...a 260X or 4580X2 or something should be OK right?
Also it'd need to have the capability to work well with the TV; I want to be able to play games on it but do basic task on my monitor, so that I don't tie both up at the same time. So it'd be a dual monitor set up as well, one into the TV and one a traditional 22" monitor.

paulWTAMU wrote:

50" HD plasma TV. Wonderful speakers. What's not to like? My TV has DVI and HDMI inputs, my reciever has a wide array of inputs for sound...how would I need to go about connecting my pc to them for gaming purposes? Would I just need to get a GPU with HDMI and a sound card with HDMI to hook up to my TV? or is it more complicated that that? It seems like it would be very easy but it'd be a several hundred dollar upgrade for me, and I don't want to blow my money before I double check this. It'd be at full 1080p resolution if I can, so I'm guessing something potent...a 260X or 4580X2 or something should be OK right?
Also it'd need to have the capability to work well with the TV; I want to be able to play games on it but do basic task on my monitor, so that I don't tie both up at the same time. So it'd be a dual monitor set up as well, one into the TV and one a traditional 22" monitor.

Why not just use the DVI input with regular 'ol sound input? What is your receiver like?

SpotTheCat wrote:

Why not just use the DVI input with regular 'ol sound input? What is your receiver like?

Agreed. Your receiver should probably have some sort of standard 1/8" stereo in.

mortifiedPenguin wrote:

SpotTheCat wrote:

Why not just use the DVI input with regular 'ol sound input? What is your receiver like?

Agreed. Your receiver should probably have some sort of standard 1/8" stereo in.

Or better, use a SPDIF connection of some kind. Receivers generally have high quality DACs

In terms of PC output, you should be able to do DVI->HDMI (either with a converter or a cable) with audio using another cable (SPDIF or regular 3.5/composite). What I want to raise here is the HDMI supported resolution. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think I have heard that you cannot use non 720p/1080p resolutions (like 800x600?) via HDMI so the only recourse is through VGA. So you may have to stick with 1280x720 or 1920x1080 in games, but for general computing doing DVI->HDMI it should be no problem.

Only if you want to get fancy then you may want to buy new cards to channel the audio through HDMI as well. I don't think it is necessary.

Dang, so resolution may be an issue? I'llh ave to look into this more It won't happen until after Christmas anyway so I have some time.

paulWTAMU wrote:

Dang, so resolution may be an issue? I'llh ave to look into this more It won't happen until after Christmas anyway so I have some time.

If you find anything let us know. I have not been able to confirm or disprove this yet.

I'm not sure I see a problem with sticking to the native resolution of the TV. In fact, I think it's extremely desirable to do so.

The issue is if my GPU will support that option, and if so can it push the games at a reasonable FPS? Ther'es also the keyboard/mouse issue, which I hadn't thought about. Crap. I may have to go wireless, which I don't like...the range would be about 10-12 feet.

paulWTAMU wrote:

The issue is if my GPU will support that option, and if so can it push the games at a reasonable FPS? Ther'es also the keyboard/mouse issue, which I hadn't thought about. Crap. I may have to go wireless, which I don't like...the range would be about 10-12 feet.

For a TV setting, you should go wireless. It really helps the the usability of the room to not have a wire from you coffee table or whatever to your TV.

yeah. I'll have to figure something out to put in front of the couch too, maybe a small coffe table? Or something taller like a laptop holder? I don't know. But I'll get it figured out gaming on a big ass TV > gaming on even a decent monitor.

paulWTAMU wrote:

yeah. I'll have to figure something out to put in front of the couch too, maybe a small coffe table? Or something taller like a laptop holder? I don't know. But I'll get it figured out gaming on a big ass TV > gaming on even a decent monitor.

My brother uses a 46" TV as his monitor now. He's got the only large TV computer setup I've ever seen that actually works well. The trick is to have a coffee table that has two levels so you can tuck the keyboard and mouse underneath when you're not using the computer. It makes the room look a lot less dorky. Wireless is also pretty much mandatory.

SpotTheCat wrote:

My brother uses a 46" TV as his monitor now. He's got the only large TV computer setup I've ever seen that actually works well. The trick is to have a coffee table that has two levels so you can tuck the keyboard and mouse underneath when you're not using the computer. It makes the room look a lot less dorky. Wireless is also pretty much mandatory.

There's only one thing that can make it even better: have the coffee table's top mounted so it can be raised up to about waist height. That way you can sit back in your couch and not have to be hunched awkwardly.

CampinCarl wrote:

SpotTheCat wrote:

My brother uses a 46" TV as his monitor now. He's got the only large TV computer setup I've ever seen that actually works well. The trick is to have a coffee table that has two levels so you can tuck the keyboard and mouse underneath when you're not using the computer. It makes the room look a lot less dorky. Wireless is also pretty much mandatory.

There's only one thing that can make it even better: have the coffee table's top mounted so it can be raised up to about waist height. That way you can sit back in your couch and not have to be hunched awkwardly.

Yeah, that might be nice. For some reason it doesn't seem like that's a problem at his place. We're short, the sofa is low, and the table is highish for a coffee table.

Gaming with HDMI on my 50 inch plasma is pretty awesome. 1920x1080, in grid, assassins creed, and Crysis is enough to get me every time. I had no trouble with resolution whatsoever. Because it was coming from the 22inch it was still in 1680x1050, I just notched it up to the higher resolution and all was gravy. Sound, I just used standard speaker jack, but I'm no real audiophile.