Need help with audio setup from PC to AVR

1Wolf

1Wolf

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
439
For a little while now I've been collecting "stuff" to set up a PC audio system. I'd received alot of help here on [H] shopping and picking the right stuff...and now that I have said stuff....I seem to be a bit confused putting this all together.

After alot of googling, I seem to have this working now....but I'm not sure if I have it setup optimally and "right" or whether I just got it to work but there are better ways I should be doing this.

Ok...here is the setup.

I've got an Intel i3770K & ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard using the onboard sound. Should I need to use them, the motherboard supports DTS-Connect and has an SPDIF out and an HDMI out. So far, I have not activated the Intel iGPU and I'm not sure whether you need to have activated, and installed drivers for, the iGPU in order to use the HDMI Out. I do know the SPDIF out definitely works.

Denon AVR-1613 Receiver.

EVGA GeForce GTX 690 Video Card.

ASUS VG278H 3D Monitor that I'd like to continue to use DVI to, as the manual seems to allude that it only supports 3D/120Hz through DVI. So I figured I better stick with DVI.

Emotiva XRM-4.1 Fronts and Rears, Definitive Tech Pro Center 1000 Center, Bic F12 Sub.

Lite-On Blu-Ray Drive.
Click to expand...

What is the BEST way to move the sound from the motherboard to the receiver? I just read an article from Maximum PC magazine that was really confusing about the difference between going from motherboard SPDIF Out, how it uses DTS-Connect if the motherboard supports it, and sending it over HDMI through your video card but how the video card can't do uncompressed audio. The article is a bit dated so I'm not sure how much of it still applies.

In case you're curious...here is a link to the article...

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ho...r_pc_your_surroundsound_audio_system?page=0,1

The way I have it set up now is....

There are 3 DVI Ports on my GTX 690. 2 DVI-I ports and 1 DVI-D. I have my ASUS VG278H connected to the "#1" DVI-I port of the GTX 690. Then I have the DVI-to-HDMI adapter that came with the card in the DVI-D port. I have an HDMI 1.4 cable from the adapter to the receiver.

Then, in the Windows 7 "Set Resolution" options it showed the #1 Display as my ASUS VG278H and the DENON AVR-1613 as #2 display. The #2 was grayed out and set to only display the desktop to Monitor #1.

So I set the display to "Extend the Desktop" which activated the #2 display. Unfortunately, this also could cause me to lose my mouse cursor off the edge of the screen. So Instead, I set it to "Duplicate" displays. This solved the mouse cursor problem.

Then I went into the nVidia panel and set the Digital Audio to broadcast over HDMI. I clicked on the device's audio options and it bought up windows sound panel where I could see that the HDMI to the Denon AVR-1613 was available. There, I configured my speakers for 5.1. The windows "Test" routine indeed was able to play sound through each of the speakers.

The front of my receiver now read "Multi".

To test, I played an MP3..."Kryptonite" by 3-Doors Down. I'm not sure if I was supposed to get sound out of the rears or not...as I wasn't getting any. But I did get sound from the fronts and the sub.

My issue is that windows sees this as a separate 1920x1080 display and it seems to chew up a bit of video horsepower in pushing this 'non-existent' display.

I know its not the most accurate test in the world, but it suffices for me to see the difference. I ran a quick 'basic' 3DMark11 benchmark WITHOUT the receiver OFF and so windows only sees my "main" display. It scores 14395. I run the same 3DMark11 benchmark with the receiver ON and windows seeing the 'fake' duplicate display...and it scores 12300. The CPU and Physx scores were the same, but the GPU score is where the hit was taken. It seems like the PC thinks its actually driving 2 1920x1080 displays?

So I'm wondering if I'm doing this right? Is there a better way to do this? What am I doing wrong?

Is there a way to tell Windows that I don't really have 2 displays and therefore it doesn't need to burn Graphics Horsepower to drive the display that doesn't exist?

Should I go into the BIOS and activate the iGPU on my motherboard, install the drivers for the iGPU, and then attempt to run the HDMI from the motherboard HDMI Out to the receiver instead?

Should I be using the SPDIF Out from the motherboard to the receiver instead?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in Advance!
 
I'm not sure why you are seeing such a large performance difference when driving 2 monitors. you really shouldn't be. There is absolutely nothing demanding about displaying a static 2D desktop

I've compared my 3Dmark score between 1 monitor and 3 monitors connected and the difference is indistinguishable. The score is within 25 3dmark points. Well within margin of error.

Another way you could connect it which is the way the receiver is actually designed to, is to go HDMI from the 690 to the receiver. And then HDMI from the receiver output to your Asus monitor.

Window will only have 1 monitor this way.
 
Thanks SirMaster.

I've only got one actual "monitor" so I'm not very experienced with what to expect when windows thinks it has 2. I can assure you though....I repeated the 3DMark11 test a few times and it came back the same each time. I'd have my AVR on, with windows picking it up as a 2nd Display....and I'd set Windows to "Duplicate Displays" instead of "Extended Desktop". Then I'd run 3DMark11's free basic benchmarks. Once it was complete, I'd turn off my AVR which would automatically disconnect the "invisible 2nd display" from windows and I'd be back to single display in windows. Re-run the 3DMark11 test...and the result would be about 15% higher.

As far as daisy chaining the HDMI from the card, into the AVR, and then back out to my monitor as it was designed to be...unfortunately, the ASUS manual seems to lead me to believe their 3D Panel will work better via DVI than HDMI.
 
Do you get the same performance difference if you run it in "Extend displays" mode?
 
1Wolf said:
Thanks SirMaster.

I've only got one actual "monitor" so I'm not very experienced with what to expect when windows thinks it has 2. I can assure you though....I repeated the 3DMark11 test a few times and it came back the same each time. I'd have my AVR on, with windows picking it up as a 2nd Display....and I'd set Windows to "Duplicate Displays" instead of "Extended Desktop". Then I'd run 3DMark11's free basic benchmarks. Once it was complete, I'd turn off my AVR which would automatically disconnect the "invisible 2nd display" from windows and I'd be back to single display in windows. Re-run the 3DMark11 test...and the result would be about 15% higher.

As far as daisy chaining the HDMI from the card, into the AVR, and then back out to my monitor as it was designed to be...unfortunately, the ASUS manual seems to lead me to believe their 3D Panel will work better via DVI than HDMI.
Click to expand...


Oh, I didn't realize that you have a 3D monitor. Yeah, it wont work in 120Hz 3D mode going through the receiver i'm pretty sure.

Have you tried extended desktop mode rather than duplicate? I know you don't really want a hidden extended monitor, but there are ways to make it not so annoying.

One simple way is to move the extended monitor in the Windows display settings to the corner of your main monitor. This way you don't accidentally move your mouse or move windows onto the extended desktop area.

If that solution is insufficient I know there are simple programs out there you can install that prevent your cursor from moving to an extended monitor and thus you can completely ignore the extended monitor.

I only suggest this because maybe extended monitors doesn't affect performance like duplicate does. Or maybe you are getting affected performance because the 690 is technically SLi. I only have a single 680, but I know I don't see any performance loss from 1 or even 2 additional monitors in extended mode.

I have a Denon AVR-2112CI that I use all the time with my PC.

Also, maybe try playing with the setting in the nVidia control panel called "multi-display/mixed-gpu acceleration". Try setting it to all the possible settings and see how that affects your 3dmark.


I should also add that if the above all fails then using the integrated motherboard HDMI for audio would also be a good solution.
 
Thanks SirMaster.

You called it right. Instead of "Duplicate Desktop", I set it to "Extend Desktop" and benchmarked again...sure enough....the results were very close to the benchmark results I saw without the Denon on....around 14300 some-odd.

Interesting...with the AVR off (and thus windows only seeing 1 display), score is 14500ish. With the AVR on, and the 2nd display set to "duplicate display"...score is 12300ish. With the AVR on, and the 2nd display set to "extend display"...score is 14300ish.

The results were repeatable so I think the "Duplicate Display" was the problem. I'll just do like you suggested and scoot the right display down into the corner so I don't lose my mouse.

Thanks SirMaster :)
 
Glad it worked out.

I'm guessing that it actually takes some work for the GPU to output all the 3D graphics out the second port (even though it's already all rendered) whereas it takes virtually no work to output a 2D desktop.
 
I'm having an issue with the extended display thing as well. Same receiver. I don't think I can connect it to my monitor since it doesn't have any ports. Can't duplicate desktop since my main monitor is 2560x1600. It's not a show-stopper for me having the extended desktop, but it is slightly annoying. If anyone has a suggestion to re-wire it differently or can link that program that was mentioned earlier that stops the cursor from leaving the main display, I'd really appreciate it.
 
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