HTPC seating question

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Quiz

Gawd
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
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Say I have a home theater/media room with just one seat (because the room is small and I will be only one using it) and one of the sources is a gaming PC so I can play PC games on the AV setup. Should that one seat be a comfy home theater seat + lap desk or a desk + comfy office chair? If I choose a comfy home theater seat, I'll have to use a lap desk to place the keyboard and mouse on when playing PC games but this might not provide the optimal position for the keyboard and mouse. If I choose a desk + comfy office chair, then the keyboard and mouse go on the desk but this might not be as comfortable for movie watching as the comfy home theater seat.

Summary:

Comfy home theater seat + lap desk = good for movies but suboptimal for PC gaming.
Desk + comfy office chair = good for PC gaming but not as comfy for movie watching as a comfy home theater seat.

What are your guys thoughts?
 
I think you have to keep the two separate (Home Theater/PC Gaming). That said, Home Theater + Console Gaming is a better fit.
Problem is screen size and proximity to it.
A screen large enough to create a home theater experience would put you a good distance from it when PC gaming.
And that is not to mention the sound system you'd no doubt want to round out the HT experience.
The compromises you'd have to make would make one or the other less than optimal as you have no doubt alluded to.
If it is a one room you have to accommodate both then I can see ways to get it done but it would involve monitors for PC gaming and a Big screen for movies.
 
owcraftsman said:
I think you have to keep the two separate (Home Theater/PC Gaming). That said, Home Theater + Console Gaming is a better fit.
Problem is screen size and proximity to it.
A screen large enough to create a home theater experience would put you a good distance from it when PC gaming.
And that is not to mention the sound system you'd no doubt want to round out the HT experience.
The compromises you'd have to make would make one or the other less than optimal as you have no doubt alluded to.
If it is a one room you have to accommodate both then I can see ways to get it done but it would involve monitors for PC gaming and a Big screen for movies.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

Are you saying PC gaming with keyboard + mouse is more suited to "intimate" viewing distances to the screen (such as a monitor on a desk)?
 
That will be incredibly subjective, but it depends on the type of game you play.

If you play a lot of controllers games, the home theater seating is easy (nuance between a console and big screen mode steam with a controller can be small, near 0 if you are lucky).
If you play lot of counter strike 2, Sim city and want a perfect as you can keyboard-mouse setup, seem like an easy pick for the desk.

The in between become more complex.

You can PC game on a home theater, would you do it via the network it can be a bit of trouble to make it work nicely, but if you directly plug your TV to your hdmi output, there is virtually no different with a regular desktop and regular monitor for you to setup and play game nowaday.

The PC-TV wakeup feature, maybe will not work out of the box like a pc monitor but that pretty much it and modern TV are now made with being plugged to a PC in mind quite often.
 
Yes. Let's say you have a 65" monitor for gaming and movies. Your recommended viewing distance would be 8.1 to 13.5 feet depending on personal preference. Now consider reading the windows desktop from that distance in 4k let alone mini maps stats etc while gaming. I'm not saying it can't be done just you will have to compromise to make it work. Similarly a 32" monitor recommended viewing distance is 4 to 5 feet away. Most desks are barely 2' wide so even that requires compromise. I find 3' from 27" to be perfect and doable with the average desks we use, but that's just me.
Best resource for viewing distance
Other resource
 
Windows desktop will be scaled and perfectly readable (by default I think for 4k TV, but you can adjust at will) and most of the time inside a Steam big tv mode or other manager of the sorts (I use one that let you put all your launcher game easily, but steam can let you do that as well). There still lot of apps with scaling issue, but you do not tend to use them on a gaming HTPC.

Any game that has a console version will tend to have a GUI made for TV, which will be almost all game you will want to use this setup, some let you scale the GUI (or text).

Playing red dead, god of war, Black Myth on a tv instead of a monitor will work perfectly fine, if you do it with a controller will be virtually the same than a console.

Once you are setup to boot inside Big picture mode (or an equivalent, Gog galaxy, launchbox, playnite.....):
m09tni6e0g0a1.png

If you play controller game, you do not need to touch a keyboard-mouse (outside some issues arising)
 
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If you're not playing competitively, using a wireless keyboard and mouse/trackball work quite well playing computer games through the TV, with the requisite scaling set to properly see the screen at distance (as already alluded to).
 
I have dabbled in WMC, Plex, and HTPC for 15 years. It has always been a major pain to get all working together well. Now with HDMI 2.1 things are getting a bit better at least from what I'm reading it’s a more viable solution because not only Video quality is better but so too is the audio out which is lossless. Gone are the days using optical out from PC which is limited to 5.1 audio. Even though HDMI 2.1 passes the codecs you still need an AVR to make it all work seamlessly and perform the decoding. We are talking some major upgrades for me to get everything 2.1 compatible but it is the way to go. My man cave consists of 2 gaming PCs 2-5.1 audio systems and 3-27" & 1-34" UW monitors and 1-55" TV. The 55” is connected to a Roku ultimate and optical out to 5.1 speaker system for movies/football, Go Fins! :D I can game or PC on them all. It's 12x13 space works well for gaming and movies but still I head to my home theater for serious movie watching with 5.2.4 4k heaven. Even my 3090 FTW 3 or 6900XT don't game well at 4k but do well at 1440p so the 55" is out of the picture when gaming. MY viewing distance is 3-4' w/keyboard and mouse in front of me I lean back and the 55" is 5-6' away. While we're talking audio when I game it's with a headset (Audeze Maxwell) due to better positional audio which would be a compromise I'm not willing to do without IMHO. I say all this to illustrate how difficult melding PC and HT practically is. It is so much easier to build either separately for the best experience. Sorry to ramble.
 
Would you guys say a 85" TV with a 7-8 feet viewing distance is too much?
 
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