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Guide to Display Cables / Adapters (v2)

Glenwing

I need to take HDMI out from a 2012 Mac Mini and run a DisplayPort monitor. All the cables I’ve found say they are uni-directional and don’t work in this manner. How does someone accomplish this?

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  • 4 months later...

@Glenwing this thread is fantastic. Missing some HDMI2.1 references in its current version. But so so so informative.

 

Essential quick reference 👏👏👏

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  • 1 month later...

@Glenwing I have a question, does variable refresh rate (VRR), either by Free-Sync or G-sync increase the datarate requirement? 

On the data rate calculator I don't see an option to add VRR so I wonder if it does have an impact and if so, by how much?

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5 hours ago, VirtualBlack said:

@Glenwing I have a question, does variable refresh rate (VRR), either by Free-Sync or G-sync increase the datarate requirement? 

On the data rate calculator I don't see an option to add VRR so I wonder if it does have an impact and if so, by how much?

No, VRR does not affect the data rate

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  • 3 months later...

Any particular brand (available in Norway / Europe) for optical hdmi-cables running 50ft / 15 meter? Would prefer HDMI 2.1 (for later TV upgrade to 4k @ 120 hz), but have today 4k @ 60hz. Will be using in conjuction with VRR for gaming.

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Hello,
So I have had a XL2411Z as a backup monitor sitting in the basement, and now that I sold my main monitor, I want to use XL2411Z for a couple of weeks until I get a new one.

 

I have read the original thread and I am a bit of a miss here.

My GPU only has HDMI, DisplayPort and USB-C, while the monitor has HDMI, D-SUB (VGA) and DVI-D. I have tried a 2 Euro's adapter that can allow me to connect trough it via HDMI and DVI-D and receive signal, but it does not list higher refresh rates than 60 Hz.

Can anyone provide me with an DisplayPort to DVI-D solution for allowing the 144Hz trough the XL2411Z connections?
I thought it's achievable with HDMI as well but it doesn't work and after reading the thread it shouldn't work.
I checked the links for recommended cables, but there is no product listed for XL2411Z that allows DisplayPort to DVI-D Dual Link Active cable.
Please help.

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9 hours ago, DanielSan11v1 said:

Hello,
So I have had a XL2411Z as a backup monitor sitting in the basement, and now that I sold my main monitor, I want to use XL2411Z for a couple of weeks until I get a new one.

 

I have read the original thread and I am a bit of a miss here.

My GPU only has HDMI, DisplayPort and USB-C, while the monitor has HDMI, D-SUB (VGA) and DVI-D. I have tried a 2 Euro's adapter that can allow me to connect trough it via HDMI and DVI-D and receive signal, but it does not list higher refresh rates than 60 Hz.

Can anyone provide me with an DisplayPort to DVI-D solution for allowing the 144Hz trough the XL2411Z connections?
I thought it's achievable with HDMI as well but it doesn't work and after reading the thread it shouldn't work.
I checked the links for recommended cables, but there is no product listed for XL2411Z that allows DisplayPort to DVI-D Dual Link Active cable.
Please help.

There are several links to adapters that will work. Maybe you just didn't scroll down to the active adapter section?

 

Also there are USB-C to dual-link DVI adapters that will work.

 

https://linustechtips.com/topic/729232-guide-to-display-cables-adapters-v2/?output=USBC&input=DVI

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey. Good job on that calculator! I appreciate your effort.

 

I'm currently trying to figure out whether the following will work (please read on). I have:

  • Dell U2719D
  • Dell P2720DC
  • desktop with a 3070 and a mobo with USB-C
  • laptop with Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C

 

So the desktop config is desktop -> P27 (DP from the GPU and USB-C from the motherboard) -> U27 (MST DP out from the P27).

The laptop is just the USB-C to the P27 and then same MST to the U27 (so one cable carries video+USB and also charges the laptop).

It's hooked up like this because I need 6-7 USB things to be switchable between the two computers. It works fine - both monitors do 2560x1440/60 no problem (after selecting USB-C Prioritization -> "High Resolution" on the P27 - otherwise it wouldn't allow the U27 to go all the way up to its native).

 

Now's the fun part - I'm looking to replace the U27 with a 34" monitor, most probably the LG 34GP950G-B. I'm looking through the menus of the P27 and strangely it reports that it's only capable of DP 1.2 (HBR2). If that's true, will I have issues with connecting that 34 as the second monitor in the MST chain? How do I determine which timing format to use? CTA-861 says it doesn't define anything for 3440x1440 at 120 or 144 Hz; if I switch to "None", can I use that as a ballpark value? If yes, how do I read the data rate table? Would it be 17.28 Gbit/s for both the P27 and the 34, or just for the 34 via DP out?

 

I'd be fine if the laptop is limited to 100-ish Hz on the 34, but would like the desktop to utilise the full 144/160 Hz. One of the limiting factors is that many of those 34" displays only have like 1 DP, 1 HDMI and often no DP out. If I hook the two monitors separately (HDMI to the 34, DP to the P27) it might get annoying if I have to select inputs on both monitors when switching between desktop and laptop. Right now I do so by switching the USB-C and selecting input on the P27, which is not ideal, but doable. I thought about a KVM switch, but many of the good ones cost as much as half of a monitor.

Thanks in advance.

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3 hours ago, killchain said:

I'm looking through the menus of the P27 and strangely it reports that it's only capable of DP 1.2 (HBR2). If that's true, will I have issues with connecting that 34 as the second monitor in the MST chain?

3440 × 1440 at 160 Hz requires a full HBR3 connection by itself, there's not going to be enough room to fit another 2560 × 1440 monitor in the same transmission. You'll need a separate connection if you want to take full advantage of it. With a daisy chain you'll probably be limited to 60 Hz, maybe 75 or 85 Hz.

3 hours ago, killchain said:

How do I determine which timing format to use? CTA-861 says it doesn't define anything for 3440x1440 at 120 or 144 Hz; if I switch to "None", can I use that as a ballpark value?

PC monitors typically use CVT-RB or CVT-R2.

3 hours ago, killchain said:

If yes, how do I read the data rate table? Would it be 17.28 Gbit/s for both the P27 and the 34, or just for the 34 via DP out?

The entire connection will be limited to 17.28 Gbit/s if that's all the first monitor supports. All the monitors combined must add up to less than 17.28 (actually 17.01 due to MST overhead).

3 hours ago, killchain said:

I'd be fine if the laptop is limited to 100-ish Hz on the 34, but would like the desktop to utilise the full 144/160 Hz. One of the limiting factors is that many of those 34" displays only have like 1 DP, 1 HDMI and often no DP out.

It wouldn't really make sense to have a DP out on a monitor that takes up the entire connection by itself. There's enough bandwidth leftover for maybe a 1080p 60 Hz display, and such limited capability would be almost worthless in exchange for increasing the cost of the monitor.

 

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16 hours ago, Glenwing said:

3440 × 1440 at 160 Hz requires a full HBR3 connection by itself, there's not going to be enough room to fit another 2560 × 1440 monitor in the same transmission. You'll need a separate connection if you want to take full advantage of it. With a daisy chain you'll probably be limited to 60 Hz, maybe 75 or 85 Hz.

PC monitors typically use CVT-RB or CVT-R2.

The entire connection will be limited to 17.28 Gbit/s if that's all the first monitor supports. All the monitors combined must add up to less than 17.28 (actually 17.01 due to MST overhead).

It wouldn't really make sense to have a DP out on a monitor that takes up the entire connection by itself. There's enough bandwidth leftover for maybe a 1080p 60 Hz display, and such limited capability would be almost worthless in exchange for increasing the cost of the monitor.

 

Fair enough. Thanks for the thorough answer!
In this case would it be a good bet to keep the current USB-C to the P27 and look for a USB-C -> HDMI adapter that would hopefully support HDMI 2.0 to hook up between the second USB-C of the laptop and the 34? There are even some with multiple HDMI outputs and Ethernet, so it would ease things up a little (or at least not make them worse than they are); right now besides the USB-C I usually have to plug Ethernet into the laptop (so with an adapter like this it would be 2 USB-C instead of USB-C + Ethernet).

 

Edit: something else I just thought of - the laptop, besides the 2 USB-C, also has an HDMI port that I might try. I've read though of some instances when plugging in HDMI on the go (without turning off the devices on both ends) has damaged one (or both) - I think one example was with a desktop PC and a TV. How big of a concern do you think this is, considering the laptop is either not plugged into power at all or plugged in through the same outlet (regarding potential voltage differences across different outlets)?

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  • 1 month later...
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  • 2 weeks later...

Can you provide some clarification on the calculator vs the tabulated bandwidth data provided by Intel here?

 

As an example, for 2560x1440@120Hz and 8bit color your calculator lists 11.95Gbps bandwidth requirement. The tabulated Intel data lists it as 13.27Gbps.

 

I'm trying to decide if I can use 2x 120Hz  displays daisy chained over DP1.4 and your calculator indicates I could while Intel data indicates I could not.

 

Thanks for any response!

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3 hours ago, Mysterious7705 said:

Can you provide some clarification on the calculator vs the tabulated bandwidth data provided by Intel here?

 

As an example, for 2560x1440@120Hz and 8bit color your calculator lists 11.95Gbps bandwidth requirement. The tabulated Intel data lists it as 13.27Gbps.

 

I'm trying to decide if I can use 2x 120Hz  displays daisy chained over DP1.4 and your calculator indicates I could while Intel data indicates I could not.

 

Thanks for any response!

Intel's calculator is based on transmission bit rate, mine calculates the data rate. In addition, they don't account for blanking intervals at all, which is completely wrong. If you set the timing format to "None" on my calculator and then multiply the result by 1.25 you'll get the same number as them, but it doesn't mean anything.

 

For example HDMI 2.0 has a bit rate of 18.0 Gbit/s, but can only transmit 14.4 Gbit/s of data, because only 80% of the transmission carries data, the rest is used for TMDS encoding overhead. So when you calculate how much data your video format will take, you need to make sure it is less than 14.4 Gbit/s (the maximum data rate), that's one approach. The other approach is to multiply the result by 1.25 (to include the overhead) and then make sure it's less than 18.0 Gbit/s (the physical transmission rate). That's what Intel is doing.

 

The only problem is that calculation only works for this specific interface which has 25% overhead. DisplayPort UHBR and HDMI FRL have different amounts of overhead and that calculation is not valid for those interfaces, you would need to recalculate to get another figure specific to each one. That's why it's best to just subtract the overhead and list the maximum data rate for each interface, then you can calculate one number and compare it to any of them.

 

Anyway, Intel doesn't account for blanking intervals anyway so their numbers are entirely meaningless.

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  • 1 month later...

Do you know how MST interacts with DSC? I have an MST hub that supports DSC 1.2/DP 1.4 and (after updating the firmware) it works fine connecting to a 4k144hz monitor however connecting a second (1080p) display limits the 4k one to 98hz.   

   

Do both displays need to the support DSC? I don't have another display that supports DSC to check.

 

It says dual 4k 120hz displays is supported (which would require more bandwidth than 4k144 w/ DSC + uncompressed 1080p144hz) but as mentioned it's limited to 4k98hz when a second display is connected.

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10 hours ago, Mnky313 said:

Do you know how MST interacts with DSC? I have an MST hub that supports DSC 1.2/DP 1.4 and (after updating the firmware) it works fine connecting to a 4k144hz monitor however connecting a second (1080p) display limits the 4k one to 98hz.   

   

Do both displays need to the support DSC? I don't have another display that supports DSC to check.

 

It says dual 4k 120hz displays is supported (which would require more bandwidth than 4k144 w/ DSC + uncompressed 1080p144hz) but as mentioned it's limited to 4k98hz when a second display is connected.

Sorry, I don't know how DSC and MST interact.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, I'm just looking at some old enterprise docking stations on eBay to de-clutter my workspace, specifically those with USB-C with DP Alt Mode since my laptop (ASUS ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition) only supports up to 3.2 Gen 2 speeds on its Type-C port.

I don't see any of them advertising high refresh rate as a feature, and am looking at running up to 2 1080p monitors at 144Hz. Would a dock with 2x 4K @ 60Hz output supports what I'm looking for?

Cheers!

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  • 5 months later...

Hello, I bought this DisplayPort to DVI cable (brand stated DVI Single Link), I saw the table so this should be a passive cable but the specification marks a PS8121E chip, so my question is straight, is this a passive cable?

 

PXL_20231216_222950830.NIGHT.thumb.jpg.d00e77a1da17d728ed799828dc556213.jpg

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3 hours ago, xBlackZero said:

Hello, I bought this DisplayPort to DVI cable (brand stated DVI Single Link), I saw the table so this should be a passive cable but the specification marks a PS8121E chip, so my question is straight, is this a passive cable?

 

PXL_20231216_222950830.NIGHT.thumb.jpg.d00e77a1da17d728ed799828dc556213.jpg

It's a passive adapter. The PS8121E is a 3.3V to 5V level shifter since DP and HDMI use different voltage levels.

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  • 1 month later...

Every DVI to HDMI cable or adapter that I tried only worked up to FHD. Are there any that are guaranteed to work up to 4K?

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2 hours ago, testcy said:

Every DVI to HDMI cable or adapter that I tried only worked up to FHD. Are there any that are guaranteed to work up to 4K?

I've used the bluerigger cable linked in the guide up to 4K 60 Hz before.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S4R5CK/?tag=linus21-20

 

What graphics card are you using? AMD cards need to have the pixel clock patcher installed.

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1 minute ago, Glenwing said:

What graohics card?

AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB.

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7 minutes ago, testcy said:

AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB.

See my edit above. Did you install the pixel clock patcher?

 

https://linustechtips.com/topic/729232-guide-to-display-cables-adapters-v2/?output=DVI&input=HDMI

On 1/26/2017 at 10:38 PM, Glenwing said:

This means that if the graphics card supports HDMI 2.0, then any DVI ports on the graphics card will function as an additional HDMI 2.0 output when a passive DVI-to-HDMI cable/adapter is attached. Formats like 3840 × 2160 at 60 Hz, 2560 × 1440 at 144 Hz, or 1920 × 1080 at 240 Hz with 8 bpc RGB color are achievable using a DVI to HDMI connection if the graphics card and monitor both support full HDMI 2.0 speeds. Note that for AMD cards you will need to install the AMD Pixel Clock Patcher and restart the computer in order to remove an artificial driver restriction first, otherwise a 1080p 60 Hz limit will apply.

 

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Hello, 

I have a 1660 Super GPU and a LG OLED42C27 TV. 

The TV has HDMI 2.1 inputs and can run 4K at 120Hz. 

The GPU offers Display Port 1.3 and HDMI 2.0b outputs. 

As I gathered, HDMI 2.0 is unable to get more than 60Hz out of 4K, but Display port should.

 

Is it possible to use an adapter from Display Port to HDMI?

Is a special HDMI cable required from the adapter to the TV? 

 

 

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