GTX 680 and 4 displays

[RLemon]

Situation
I have 3 monitors connected to this GTX 680, which is fine, I can use NVidia surround and everything works without any issues (The monitors are connected via the 2 DVI ports and the HDMI port). I would like to connect an HDMI TV as well.
 
Goal
When the TV is turned on, the monitors should switch off and the TV will be the main (and only) display.
 
Options

• Connect the TV to the onboard hdmi port
• Unplug the HDMI monitor and plug the TV in each time I want to use it
• Get a Display Port to HDMI adapter and connect it to the GTX 680

Results so far
- Connect the TV to the onboard hdmi port:
Pros: This works, when the TV is turned on, the computer detects the extra display it switches profiles, disabling the monitors and switching to the TV.
Cons: When on the TV, everything is processed by the CPU(Intel 3570k), so any thing GPU intensive, like gaming, is no longer feasible.
 
- Unplug the HDMI monitor and plug the TV in each time I want to use it
Pros: This works, when the TV is turned on, the computer detects the extra display it switches profiles, disabling the monitors and switching to the TV.
Cons: Changing the HDMI cable can be awkward when your computer is in a cabnet
 
Questions

1. Would I be able to use a 4th display on the GTX 680 via a passive Display port to HDMI adapter and have normal performance (with the other 3 displays disabled)?
2. Would the computer recognize when the TV is turned on and off when it's plugged into Display Port adapter, like when it's plugged straight into an HDMI port?

[Najuno]

Well,

 

that's a good question indeed.

 

I unfortunately have no answer to your first question, for I never used so many displays with 1 computer.

 

But my answer to your second question would be rather no, because the Monitor or TV has an input and your PC's got the output. But maybe you can achieve a better coomunication (since it's a digital signal) with some third party software.

 

Sorry that I can't help you out really here.

 

EDIT: Maybe you can find something like a display port hub. That means you can switch displays on/off or run them all at the same time.

[RLemon]

I know it's been a while, but I finally got a passive DisplayPort adapter, and can confirm that the 4th display runs games at full speed, unlike the situation where I was plugged into the onboard HDMI port.

 

The display port adapter does not allow the PC to detect the displays state (on/off), however that doesn't matter because I can just plug the HDMI monitor into the adapter, and then into the GTX 680's DisplayPort, and plug the TV into the GTX 680's HDMI port.

 

After some testing with this setup, I have found the following:

• The GTX 680 detects the TV turning on via the HDMI port
• The Intel on-board GPU detects the TV turning on via the HDMI port
• The GTX680 does NOT detect when I turn the TV off via the HDMI port (Unless I unplug the TV from the wall)
• The Intel on-board DOES detect when I turn the TV off via the HDMI port (Don't have to unplug the TV from the wall)

 

In the end, the best setup I could come up with, is to have the monitors plugged into DVI+DVI+HDMI and the TV on the DisplayPort adapter (This way the Windows sees everything that is plugged in).

 

Now, by switching projector modes with Win+P I went through and set up the monitors in Control Panel>Display>Screen Resolution (Windows remembers the configurations for each projector mode)

1. Switch to "PC Screen Only" and disable all displays except the middle monitor
2. Switch to "Duplicate" and choose to duplicate the middle monitor to the TV, while disabling everything else (This is important)
3. Switch to "Extend" and enable all 3 monitors, the middle one is main, and the TV is off
4. Switch to "Second Screen Only", and this is the cool part, because we set up the TV to duplicate the middle monitor in Step 2, it considers the TV to be the "Second Screen" even if the TV isn't display #2 (Mine is Display #3)