HDTV + Gaming performance? (dual screens)

[PaZ]

Hi,

I've been looking into having a dual monitor setup one of the scenarios would be to use HDTV via TV card on one screen while gaming on the other screen. My question is since the TV uses the graphics card to display the image does this give you much of a performance hit if playing the latest in FPS games such as FEAR, HL2 etc?

If it is a significant performance hit in that scenario do they make a HDTV card with its own output to the monitor so as to avoid using the graphic card's performance at all?

I like the idea of dual screens and gaming on one and TV on the other but since GPU performance is at a premium cost if it’s using the GPU used for gaming then id rather look into other options like a HD set top box connected direct to the monitor.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[PaZ]

no replys, if people dont know here any suggestions of where I can get an answer to this post?

 

[PRIME1]

As long as you are not outputing any 3D to the HDTV you should not take much (or any) of a performance hit.

You would need a seperate tuner card to get the HDTV signal, but that would not tap your GPU's 3D performance.

 

[needmorecarnitine]

instead of worrying about gpu performance you should be thinking about the cpu performance

Which HDTV card are you using?

 

[PaZ]

instead of worrying about gpu performance you should be thinking about the cpu performance

Which HDTV card are you using?

None yet this is just research before buying my next system. I always like to do my research before spending money on a new computer setup.

I take it with that question you must have some advice about the HDTV card selection?

 

[^eMpTy^]

If your HDTV has a DVI input, you could connect it up like a regular monitor to the second output on any videocard and not take any hit whatsoever...