can i use my mobo or gpu's hdmi port for audio?

[mark1717]

Excuse me if someone else already asked and it's been answered on another thread. If you could send me the link I would really appreciate it. 

 

I want to get a soundbar (home theatre) system but it connects by hdmi cable rather than optical. 

 

My mobo has a hdmi port on the I/O shield. Can I plug in the hdmi cable for audio in it and get music?  

 

Or can I just plug it into my GPU? 

 

My pc build below: 

 

Mobo: 660M for intel icore 5  

GPU: Rx 6900 xt 

 

 

[Uptivuptiz]

Getting audio through HDMI should be simple. I'm pretty sure you can get audio through the HDMI port on your graphics card.

[An0maly_76]

@mark1717

Windows should default to HDMI audio. If not, click on your system tray speaker icon and you should be able to select your sound bar as the playback device, like so...

 

[An0maly_76]

I might add that this may be subject to the onboard port being overridden by a dedicated GPU, and that I'm pretty sure it will only playback to one device at a time.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 hours ago, Uptivuptiz said:

Getting audio through HDMI should be simple. I'm pretty sure you can get audio through the HDMI port on your graphics card.

I think getting Windows to push the audio signal when the "display" in question is disabled or doesn't exist at all is another issue. Just tried with my setup since I have audio going through DP to pass through my monitor and the moment I disabled the monitor audio passes through and display only to my secondary, the sound output from my video card went away. 

 

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[An0maly_76]

On 8/31/2022 at 8:21 PM, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I think getting Windows to push the audio signal when the "display" in question is disabled or doesn't exist at all is another issue. Just tried with my setup since I have audio going through DP to pass through my monitor and the moment I disabled the monitor audio passes through and display only to my secondary, the sound output from my video card went away.

That's because Windows can only play back or input from one device at a time.

[James Tillenger]

On 9/2/2022 at 1:27 PM, An0maly_76 said:

That's because Windows can only play back or input from one device at a time.

Good news actually. Windows will output to multiple sound devices simultaneously. 

To the OP. Windows will absolutely 100% output sound through HDMI. If you can't see an HDMI device something is wrong with the cable or the device or the port is disabled. Your graphics card will 100% transmit audio you don't need an attached display though windows may think a display is attached so you may lose windows from time to time if you don't attach a display to an output on your sound bar if it has one. The device may standby if no monitor is attached but again that's a device problem. Windows likes HDMI audio devices and will happily even do exotic things like atmos if the device is capable and it's the way I usually do it.