How to connect everything

[SamClan]

I have a pc setup with TV and a receiver, Onkyo TX 444, 5.1 Surround Sound. 

Gle496. Rear Teufel MK2. Subwoofer and center also from Teufel not sure about model. 

 

My question is how to set it up best. 

Is it worth to switch from optical to hdmi just for gaming and listening music? Or it doesn't even matter for gaming? 

I don't use Dolby Atmos at the moment, is it worth it? 

 

See picture

Tv is for watching movies and gaming Witcher 

[Bombastinator]

55 minutes ago, SamClan said:

I have a pc setup with TV and a receiver, Onkyo TX 444, 5.1 Surround Sound. 

Gle496. Rear Teufel MK2. Subwoofer and center also from Teufel not sure about model. 

 

My question is how to set it up best. 

Is it worth to switch from optical to hdmi just for gaming and listening music? Or it doesn't even matter for gaming? 

I don't use Dolby Atmos at the moment, is it worth it? 

 

See picture

Tv is for watching movies and gaming Witcher 

What tv and what motherboard would also be needed.  Do you need directional audio out of the surround sound? I’m not sure that’s even possible.  Using headphones for directional gaming audio would drastically simplify matters.

[SamClan]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

What tv and what motherboard would also be needed.  Do you need directional audio out of the surround sound? I’m not sure that’s even possible.  Using headphones for directional gaming audio would drastically simplify matters.

Lg55uj6309 TV 

X570 aorus elite 

 

 

Directional audio? 

 

 

I do have headphones but sometimes I want to play on my couch without headphones. 

 

 

If you guys say try Dolby Atmos, I go hdmi.

 

If you guys say optical is enough because games normaly don't use features that are not supported with optical. And for music it is more than enough. (Spotify Premium) 

 

 

Right now I am using the hdmi option. But haven't tried using Atmos 

 

[Bombastinator]

I don’t know from atmos.  I also am trying to avoid hdmi.

 

I don’t understand your diagrams at all so I’m ignoring them and just making it up.

 

directional audio is considered essential in PvP games so you can hear that guy sneaking up behind you.  It can be done with surround sound but working it is a nightmare and your receiver might not be able to handle anyway. Speakers need amps and the amps are in the receiver.  You could in theory have the computer do everything but you’d have to have a .1 for every channel from the computer to the receiver, so a whole mess of wires, and not all motherboards can even do that. So we do directional audio with headphones and cut the Gordian knot. Then the motherboard no longer matters.  They all do simple stereo. TV outputs stereo to the receiver, computer outputs stereo to the receiver, computer outputs video to the TV (via DP or even vga, but not HDMI because hdmi has stereo in it and will complicate matters) receiver switches stereo audio and converts it to 5.1 by itself. Computer can send video to the TV, but the tv switches video from either it’s system or the computer.  Sound on the TV is disabled.  To the receiver only.  So a fistful of remotes.  There’s probably a better way to do it but that is likely to work. The computer outputs through the receiver (which can make beep codes quite jarring) and if you are watching tv the computer has no audio out unless you want to use the headphones. If you want really accurate directional audio for Witcher you’ll have to use the headphones but if you just want kind of generic surround the receiver can handle it. And I don’t have to look up either the receiver or the motherboard.  If you want accurate directional audio through the surround sound it’s a much bigger mess which I leave to others.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Jirne]

If it were my setup I'd use this?

That way you simply choose on your PC what monitor you wanna use in Display settings and if you wanna go headphones or speaker in sound panel.

(yes, you can select HDMI as audio output while using DP displays!)

 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Jirne said:

If it were my setup I'd use this?

That way you simply choose on your PC what monitor you wanna use in Display settings and if you wanna go headphones or speaker in sound panel.

(yes, you can select HDMI as audio output while using DP displays!)

 

 

There are two monitors on the pc?  The spidf between the tv and the receiver confuses me. Hdmi is used to ease differentiation of output?  Will it just pass video like that?

[Jirne]

25 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There are two monitors on the pc?

That is how you had drawn it out *shrug* you can connect as many as you have DP ports xD

26 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The spidf between the tv and the receiver confuses me

Spidf = optical. it's because I otherwise don't think you'll get your TV audio (so when not using the PC, just watching TV) won't be fed back into the AV;

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Hdmi is used to ease differentiation of output?  Will it just pass video like that?

Example:

You wanna game on the 170hz monitor with headphones. You select that display in windows display settings and the 3.5mm jack in audio settings. Boom. Done.

Now you wanna play some witcher in the couch? No prob. Switch display and audio both to HDMI. Now you got a chill-ass witcher session on speakers and TV

Wanna do some racing on the 170hz but with speakers? Set display to that monitor but keep audio through HDMI and tada!

 

Watching TV? No problem. Set the AV to optical/SPIDF and there you go. Cartoons in glorious 5.1

[SamClan]

18 minutes ago, Jirne said:

That is how you had drawn it out *shrug* you can connect as many as you have DP ports xD

Spidf = optical. it's because I otherwise don't think you'll get your TV audio (so when not using the PC, just watching TV) won't be fed back into the AV;

Example:

You wanna game on the 170hz monitor with headphones. You select that display in windows display settings and the 3.5mm jack in audio settings. Boom. Done.

Now you wanna play some witcher in the couch? No prob. Switch display and audio both to HDMI. Now you got a chill-ass witcher session on speakers and TV

Wanna do some racing on the 170hz but with speakers? Set display to that monitor but keep audio through HDMI and tada!

 

Watching TV? No problem. Set the AV to optical/SPIDF and there you go. Cartoons in glorious 5.1

The problem is that if I use my receiver via hdmi for my pc it is seen as a extra monitor with max 85 Hz. 

 

If I use optical, I get less audio features but a second monitor with 144 hz

 

And I am not sure if those less audio features mean worse sound in-game with bad 5.1 surround sound. And optical has no Dolby Atmos. And if you guys are like Atmos is worth it I will not use optical for pc to receiver 

 

 

 

[SamClan]

46 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There are two monitors on the pc?  The spidf between the tv and the receiver confuses me. Hdmi is used to ease differentiation of output?  Will it just pass video like that?

Tv optical receiver is for netflix. 

 

Pc to TV is for when I play Witcher. Bigger screen and audio is from pc to receiver 

 

[Jirne]

28 minutes ago, SamClan said:

The problem is that if I use my receiver via hdmi for my pc it is seen as a extra monitor with max 85 Hz.

But it isn't a monitor... So if you just don't send it any display signal?

[BuzzingBee]

I personally would use HDMI as audio output at all cost. Using optical cable from PC to AVR would limit to Dolby Digital Live and DTS connect for surround sound, but their latency is too noticeable. HDMI with PCM 5.1/7.1 gives uncompressed audio and lowest latency, and for movie viewing it would support many audio formats. 

 

Understandably you would have another unwanted display from AVR. I assume you don't want TV on all the time so connecting AVR to TV via HDMI isn't an option. What I did is getting small 10 inch LCD screen for PC monitoring software, and connect AVR to that tiny monitor via HDMI. 

[Bombastinator]

11 hours ago, Jirne said:

That is how you had drawn it out *shrug* you can connect as many as you have DP ports xD

Spidf = optical. it's because I otherwise don't think you'll get your TV audio (so when not using the PC, just watching TV) won't be fed back into the AV;

Example:

You wanna game on the 170hz monitor with headphones. You select that display in windows display settings and the 3.5mm jack in audio settings. Boom. Done.

Now you wanna play some witcher in the couch? No prob. Switch display and audio both to HDMI. Now you got a chill-ass witcher session on speakers and TV

Wanna do some racing on the 170hz but with speakers? Set display to that monitor but keep audio through HDMI and tada!

 

Watching TV? No problem. Set the AV to optical/SPIDF and there you go. Cartoons in glorious 5.1

Re: number of monitors

im not the OP.  I couldn’t even read those diagrams.

 

re: spdif and hdmi

it is optical digital stereo.  i think I get it. The hdmi is hdmi out and you’d need an in port even though hdmi carries both video and digital stereo so the spdif could be, say rca or something except you’d need the port for it and the receiver has a spdif in available.

 

Re: watching tv

so you have to control the receiver and the tv and the computer each separately.  This is what I meant by a fist full of remotes.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

On 9/23/2022 at 9:24 AM, SamClan said:

The problem is that if I use my receiver via hdmi for my pc it is seen as a extra monitor with max 85 Hz. 

 

If I use optical, I get less audio features but a second monitor with 144 hz

 

And I am not sure if those less audio features mean worse sound in-game with bad 5.1 surround sound. And optical has no Dolby Atmos. And if you guys are like Atmos is worth it I will not use optical for pc to receiver 

 

 

 

Just an FYI, HDMI offers a much larger bitrate for Audio than Optical does. So for example, if you want to watch a Blu-Ray movie with Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD MA, using an HDMI connection to the AV receiver will give you much higher bitrate audio (which, in theory, gives you much better audio quality).

 

Optical, on the other hand, doesn't have enough bandwidth, nor does it support the HQ Movie Codecs - let alone looking at Atmos. Optical will sound worse (unless your speakers are too low quality to notice the difference).

 

Will that difference be enough to bother you? Only you can tell. You can always do a comparison test by connecting via HDMI and playing an action scene or something, then playing it again via Optical and see what you think.

 

Can you give me examples of what you're actually using the PC for when using Surround Sound? Are you just gaming? Or are you also listening to music, playing movies and TV shows, etc?

[SamClan]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

? Are you just gaming? Or are you also listening to music, playing movies and TV shows, etc?

Gaming, Witcher  3, BFBC2, Kingdome Comes Deliverance ,also music, Spotify as well as watching stuff on youtube. For movies I normally go on my couch and use the Netflix APP on the TV. The TV is connected via optical to my av-receiver. 

 

 

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

let alone looking at Atmos

and this is where I wonder. is Atmos worth it. I tried it for my pc and was like the only difference is more bass. 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

unless your speakers are too low quality to notice the difference).

those are not high end. Canton gle 496, and for the rear the Ultima 20 Mk2. and yes I have a subwoofer as well. Teufel t-4000

 

 

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

14 hours ago, SamClan said:

Gaming, Witcher  3, BFBC2, Kingdome Comes Deliverance ,also music, Spotify as well as watching stuff on youtube. For movies I normally go on my couch and use the Netflix APP on the TV. The TV is connected via optical to my av-receiver. 

What Model of TV do you have? Does it support ARC? In theory, you should definitely be using HDMI via ARC for streaming movies, if your TV supports it - you'll get a lot better quality audio than optical. But on the other hand, if the current setup works, that's fine.

14 hours ago, SamClan said:

and this is where I wonder. is Atmos worth it. I tried it for my pc and was like the only difference is more bass. 

Based on my understanding of what your speaker setup is, you're not actually using Atmos.

 

Atmos requires a minimum of 7 speakers plus a sub (normal 5.1 setup, plus 2 upward or downward firing speakers). So without the two Atmos Speakers, you're not actually getting anything super special from Atmos. Also, Atmos is most useful for movies (with some games having Atmos support now).

14 hours ago, SamClan said:

those are not high end. Canton gle 496, and for the rear the Ultima 20 Mk2. and yes I have a subwoofer as well. Teufel t-4000

You don't need super high end speakers to notice the difference. I'm using speakers from an old Logitech Z5300 speaker kit with my AV Receiver and I noticed a pretty massive difference going from Optical to HDMI - but your mileage may vary.

[SamClan]

On 9/29/2022 at 3:59 PM, dalekphalm said:

What Model of TV do you have? Does it support ARC? In theory, you should definitely be using HDMI via ARC for streaming movies, if your TV supports it - you'll get a lot better quality audio than optical. But on the other hand, if the current setup works, that's fine.

Lg55uj6309 TV, and yes it does. 

but the AV-Receiver TX444 Onkyo doesn't have 2 TV Out. 

I use the one for my PC. 

 

 

On 9/29/2022 at 3:59 PM, dalekphalm said:

Based on my understanding of what your speaker setup is, you're not actually using Atmos.

 

Atmos requires a minimum of 7 speakers plus a sub (normal 5.1 setup, plus 2 upward or downward firing speakers). So without the two Atmos Speakers, you're not actually getting anything super special from Atmos. Also, Atmos is most useful for movies (with some games having Atmos support now).

you mean something like that? 

 

 

 

 

my "solution" for the problem is to throw money on my problem. get a new av-Receiver with 2 TV out and each of them with hdmi 2.1 so I can get 4k with 120hz . But I haven't found a affordable one. 

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, SamClan said:

Lg55uj6309 TV, and yes it does. 

but the AV-Receiver TX444 Onkyo doesn't have 2 TV Out. 

I use the one for my PC. 

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding here - why do you need 2 TV out's? Do you have 2 TV's you're using off of your AV Receiver?

4 hours ago, SamClan said:

 

you mean something like that? 

Yes, that's the "classic" example of an ATMOS setup - a traditional 5.1 setup, with 2 "atmospheric" downward firing ceiling mounted speakers. You can also get "upwards firing" speakers that bounce the sound off of the ceiling to create the same effect. Also, some "Atmos" speaker packages include the upward firing speakers "built-in" to the rear surrounds or the front surrounds - but it's effectively still a separate speaker and channel that's just built into the housing of another speaker and channel.

4 hours ago, SamClan said:

my "solution" for the problem is to throw money on my problem. get a new av-Receiver with 2 TV out and each of them with hdmi 2.1 so I can get 4k with 120hz . But I haven't found a affordable one. 

You're not going to find a cheap AV Receiver that has two HDMI 2.1 4K @ 120Hz outputs. Heck, even one of those is going to make the AV receiver fairly high end.

 

Still not sure why you seem to think you need 2 TV outs though.

[SamClan]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding here - why do you need 2 TV out's? Do you have 2 TV's you're using off of your AV Receiver?

as far as I know ARC only works on the TV out HDMI plug. not on the other ones where you would plug in your BD-Player or playstation/Xbos. 

 

my pc is connected with my AV- Receiver via HDMI. That means my PC thinks oh there must be a monitor. this is why I use the TV Out of my AV-Receiver for my pc Monitor. 

this is why my second monitor 1080p is caped to 85 hz instead of its 144. 

 

 

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You're not going to find a cheap AV Receiver that has two HDMI 2.1 4K @ 120Hz outputs

I found a affordable one for I believe 699 EUR, but it only had one HDMI 2.1 in and two hdmi 2.1 out. 

 

 

 

 

with 2 TV out, I wouldn't have the problem to decide which one gets dolby Atmos (and yes I do still miss 2 speakers) as well as the other benefits that goes with HDMI over optical.

HDMI = faster? no latency stuff dolby atmos

optical = PC second Monitor gets its 144 hz back

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, SamClan said:

as far as I know ARC only works on the TV out HDMI plug. not on the other ones where you would plug in your BD-Player or playstation/Xbos. 

Correct, ARC only works on the TV OUT plug - that's how ARC is designed. ARC uses the same cable that sends a signal from the AV Receiver to the TV, as a way to send audio from the TV back to the AC Receiver.

6 minutes ago, SamClan said:

my pc is connected with my AV- Receiver via HDMI. That means my PC thinks oh there must be a monitor.

Yes this is a common problem with connecting PC's to AV Receivers when you're not intending on using the TV as a monitor.

6 minutes ago, SamClan said:

this is why I use the TV Out of my AV-Receiver for my pc Monitor. 

this is why my second monitor 1080p is caped to 85 hz instead of its 144. 

You don't have to do this, but if you don't do this, you'll have the phantom display - it's workable but there are potential problems you'll want to research.

 

Question: How are you connecting the TV to the AV Receiver? Or are you just... not doing that? How do you get video from the AV Receiver and any downstream video outputs to the TV?

6 minutes ago, SamClan said:

I found a affordable one for I believe 699 EUR, but it only had one HDMI 2.1 in and two hdmi 2.1 out. 

Is that enough HDMI 2.1 inputs for you? How many other HDMI inputs does it have? I'd assume probably 4 or 5 for that grade of AV Receiver.

6 minutes ago, SamClan said:

with 2 TV out, I wouldn't have the problem to decide which one gets dolby Atmos (and yes I do still miss 2 speakers) as well as the other benefits that goes with HDMI over optical.

HDMI = faster? no latency stuff dolby atmos

optical = PC second Monitor gets its 144 hz back

Honestly, I would consider connecting your PC to the AV Receiver using a different input method (Optical or even Analog if your soundcard and the AV Receiver support analog 5.1), as that would eliminate the most amount of problems, but that also severely limits the quality of your PC sound.

 

No matter which way you look at it, it can cause problems.

[BuzzingBee]

9 hours ago, SamClan said:

my "solution" for the problem is to throw money on my problem. get a new av-Receiver with 2 TV out and each of them with hdmi 2.1 so I can get 4k with 120hz . But I haven't found a affordable one. 

Don't know if swapping AVR to HDMI 2.1 support is a good idea for your scenario. What is your monitor exactly? Because there's a chance your second monitor may support up to 85Hz using HDMI input, no matter what AVR you're using. Or you could try connecting your PC to your second monitor with HDMI and check its max refresh rate.

 

Honestly I don't really blame you, AVRs don't give easy solutions for PC after killing off 5.1/7.1 analog input and lack of USB input. Optical with DDL/DTS connect is a compromised solution, and HDMI don't give enough good specs for PC gaming until HDMI 2.1 but most monitors are still behind today that DP is preferred over HDMI. 

 

I would still prefer you get one more display for AVR to connect onto, but given you passed that thought and wanting another solution, what about duplicating displays for one of your DP monitor and your AVR? In that way you won't need to connect AVR to anything.

[SamClan]

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Question: How are you connecting the TV to the AV Receiver? Or are you just... not doing that? How do you get video from the AV Receiver and any downstream video outputs to the TV?

Optical to AV receiver and if I want to play games on my pc via tv I use direct hdmi. 

 

 

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Is that enough HDMI 2.1 inputs for you?

Maybe, pc needs 1, and one for a console later on. 

 

And other non 2.1 of course too. But I like to "future proof" my stuff 

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

severely limits the quality of your PC sound.

Yes and that is the annoying part. And my problem I do play games more often than watching TV/movies 

 

7 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

What is your monitor exactly?

Don't remember but it is capable of 144 Hz. It is my old main monitor 

 

7 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

what about duplicating displays for one of your DP monitor and your AVR? In that way you won't need to connect AVR to anything

To be honest I didn't consider it, until now. 

 

 

 

Overall it is a throw money on it problem because with all my hdmi 2.1 wanting I still don't have a gpu supporting it... Well I could use DP to hdmi adapter 

[BuzzingBee]

15 hours ago, SamClan said:

Overall it is a throw money on it problem because with all my hdmi 2.1 wanting I still don't have a gpu supporting it... Well I could use DP to hdmi adapter 

If you mean using DP to HDMI adapter to connect from PC to monitor, again you may came across HDMI limitation. You should really find out your monitor's specs and check max output for HDMI. When I had old monitor with 1080p 144Hz back then, DP can reach up to 144Hz but HDMI was only capped at 60Hz.

 

What you could try is using HDMI 2.0 to DP adapter but I can't say whether getting to 144Hz will work as I never own that adapter before.