[gongo]

.....for me that is .....i got myself a slim Marantaz AVR with LPCM Hdmi input..i was wondering if i could get myself a DVI-HDMI convertor and plug one into the AVR ...will i get LPCM 7.1 sound from my PC (games, videos, music)? Totally bye bye to motherboard audio and its puny 2.0 spdif digital/5.1 compressed DDL/DTS-C?

The connections look like this

4870 dvi 1 - Dell 2408
4870 dvi 2 - hdmi convertor - Marantz AVR
onboard realtek audio - headphones out

Can that work independently of each other ....as i do not want to power on my AVR whilst surfing the net..i heard HD4/5xxx radeons come with its own onboard realtek...that can pass LPCM audio for Windows 7?

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Use the HDMI adaptor that came with your card.

I don't know if your separate "only-audio" output will cause trouble though. I'd recommend you send everything through your receiver (with a HDMI->DVI adaptor for the receiver output if necessary) rather than trying to treat it as two monitors, as the former definitely works. For the alternate setup I'm not really sure... seems like you'd have a "ghost" monitor sitting on the AVR receiver which may or may not cause problems in windows.

[Silent_Buddha]

If you enable the HDMI audio, then it disables the onboard audio. The Realtek driver will only allow one or the other to work (actually 2 different Realtek drivers with the install program uninstalling whichever one isn't being installed).

You'll want to make sure you use the DVI->HDMI converter that is included with the ATI video card or buy one that will pass through audio. Most aftermarket converters won't pass through audio as that's still relatively uncommon (although growing more common now that both ATI and Intel are doing it, and Nvidia to a certain extent).

The sound would be roughly equivalent to SPDIF out on your motherboard output, although multichannel instead of only 2 channel. And should be a fair bit superior to the analog outs.

Oh and yes it will work with anything in Windows quite well.

Regards,
SB

[V3]

I also find you actually need to disable the onboard audio in the BIOS and uninstall the driver for it, if not HDMI audio can get confused and not work. It was quite troublesome to get it working, but it can work.

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Interesting note about the realtek onboard. I've often used both onboard and HDMI audio and they just show up as two different devices that I can toggle between or even use simultaneously in Win7. That said, maybe it has always been non-Realtek onboard audio... I don't remember the details.

[fbuffer]

Originally Posted by V3

I also find you actually need to disable the onboard audio in the BIOS and uninstall the driver for it, if not HDMI audio can get confused and not work. It was quite troublesome to get it working, but it can work.

In the past I've simply disabled the onboard realtek audio via device manager prior to installing the ATI HDMI audio, older drivers and some of Realteks basic driver packages list the ATI HDMI audio as Realtek High Definition Audio instead of ATI High Definition Audio Device. In Win 7 its easy(ier) to tell between the Realtek onboard and ATI HDMI as well as switching between the two (listed under playback devices).

[digitalwanderer]

I'm pretty sure a tin can and a string can replace onboard ALC888.

Digisan isn't a fan of onboard sound

[V3]

Well maybe the driver is better now days, but I remember the driver that came with my 4850 doesn't work at all and had to download some newer driver from realtek site and even then it was troublesome.

I'm pretty sure a tin can and a string can replace onboard ALC888

LoL, seriously Realtek isn't that bad from my experience. I got the 883 and the 889 I think and they're alright, can't see anything wrong with them considering they came free with the mobo.

[fbuffer]

Originally Posted by digitalwanderer

I'm pretty sure a tin can and a string can replace onboard ALC888.

Digisan isn't a fan of onboard sound

Honestly I'd dare say realtek is well above just about any of the competition as far as sound goes.. updates far more often and far more reliable then Via or Creative or AD and haven't seen mush of C-Media. Then again the competition is nothing to write home about either...

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Originally Posted by fbuffer

Honestly I'd dare say realtek is well above just about any of the competition as far as sound goes.. updates far more often and far more reliable then Via or Creative or AD and haven't seen mush of C-Media. Then again the competition is nothing to write home about either...

And the advantage of using HDMI is that the PC hardware doesn't really matter... the digital signal is directly forwarded to the receiver which has much better hardware than even discrete sound cards

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lauritzen

And the advantage of using HDMI is that the PC hardware doesn't really matter... the digital signal is directly forwarded to the receiver which has much better hardware than even discrete sound cards

Yeah that's one of the reasons I don't bother with discrete sound cards anymore. For HTPCs I always just use audio over HDMI through the ATI cards. And for my desktop PC I always get motherboards that feature real-time encoding of multichannel sound through SPDIF. Basically what's in the ATI cards except on the MB.

I just don't see the point of discrete sound cards anymore unless you can't make use of digital output for sound.

Regards,
SB

[gongo]

I am back to report....that it frickin' WORKS! 2 simultaneous independent LPCM and 1200p video are fully capably streamed! WOOOOOOOOOOO!

I am getting 5.1 LPCM from Windows 7 and thus my onboard is officially replaced! It sounds a whole lot better ...previously i was passing 2.0 LPCM through optical...and i got some drop outs and screeches...now i get clean digital audio...with a .1 subwoofer channel! This feature...why is AMD not telling us more... i like to see some benches whether activating the HD4800 onboard affects temp/fps/overclocks....well if only AMD was more forecoming to advertise this feature..

[gongo]

BTW i did not do anything software wize....i just installed the adaptor...and switch the playback devices from Windows 7...it was a breeze...i can even select back my onboard ALC888 for the nightly headphone analog! Amazing....no conflicts...everything works...BAM Apple styel!

[gongo]

Upon further testing....this feature turns on dual monitor setup..which is not what i wanted..as i am connected to one and only one monitor..... now my mouse/windows can disappear to the "next" monitor..

Is there a way to pass only audio to my AVR....maybe now i know why this feature is not well advertised...not as flexible programmed...disabling the "2nd screen" will disappear my audio...

[V3]

That's easily fix, just set the monitor to clone each other.

[gongo]

I did that...and "all" monitor would default at the lowest possible resolution....1080p....my monitor is not a HDTV...so i got black bars on 24" size...not rockin...i have to wait for the HD6000 series to see whether it can select which stream to passthrough...or maybe Fermi cards could? or...better yet....some Catalyst drivers to allow independent audio/video streams....so 2.0 LPCM for now...

If there is one thing i can feel good about...i did not waste 50 dollars on some glass toslink cable i got together with the AVR...

[Dave Baumann]

Originally Posted by gongo

Is there a way to pass only audio to my AVR....maybe now i know why this feature is not well advertised...not as flexible programmed...disabling the "2nd screen" will disappear my audio...

Its designed to operate in a standard HDMI (and now DP) audio scenario, which means either audio via the display device its connected through or used in a passthrough environment (GPU->Reciever->Display).

V3's suggestion may work.

[Davros]

so an ati card can do 8 channels uncompressed ?
at what sample rate?

[Dave Baumann]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Audio.2Fvideo

Its easiest just to read the HDMI specifications. Note HD 4000 does HDMI 1.0-1.2 capabilities while HD 5000 series does HDMI 1.3 capabilities.

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Originally Posted by gongo

I did that...and "all" monitor would default at the lowest possible resolution....1080p....my monitor is not a HDTV...so i got black bars on 24" size

Hmm, yeah that could be a problem. I don't remember if there's a way to over-ride the information that your receiver is giving back to the video card on supported resolutions since the video signal to the receiver is not being used anyways... could play with that but as I mentioned it's definitely a bit of a strange setup.

Originally Posted by gongo

or maybe Fermi cards could?

In my experience the ATI cards operate quite a bit better when connected via HDMI w/ audio over a receiver. The latest Fermi cards at least no longer require an internal audio connector but I've had more issues with them in that setup than ATI. In particular I've had a lot of issues with the computer going to sleep and not re-negotiating properly with the AVR on wakeup and similar issues with the receiver being power cycled and sometimes even just switching inputs on the receiver :S YMMV though of course.

And yeah the ATI cards are fun - I was playing with uncompressed 192 kHz ASIO output to the receiver the other day and it worked great I think Fermi supports similar things now as well but I haven't played with it.

[Silent_Buddha]

I wonder if it's possible to input an unsupported resolution for HDMI as it is for regular monitors? If so, you can just hack the registry and input a non-standard resolution that you can force the HDMI connection to.

I do this all the time for regular DVI connections to my 30" monitor so I can have nonstandard Window sizes (2400x1500) for games which don't allow explicit resizing of the game window. Those games usually only display valid desktop resolutions for windowed mode.

Although one potential problem is that doing this may or may not disrupt the HDCP handshaking over HDMI which may or may not disable video and/or audio.

Regards,
SB

[V3]

I know there is program called UltraMon (not free) that supposedly handle different monitor res while cloning, but I've no experience with it. Multi-res cloning is long overdue feature IMO. Its very useful for doing presentation and the like too.

[Silent_Buddha]

Cloning with different res per monitor would only be possible with either...

1. Virtual desktop, where the smaller res display would have to use a virtual desktop of the size of the larger. I'm not sure if that's possible or not.

2. Completely resolution independant UI. Thus each monitor would have to have a custom PPI such that the same desktop contents are displayed despite differing resolutions.

Regards,
SB

[gongo]

Originally Posted by Dave Baumann

Its designed to operate in a standard HDMI (and now DP) audio scenario, which means either audio via the display device its connected through or used in a passthrough environment (GPU->Reciever->Display).

V3's suggestion may work.

Thread revive Dave cos' i found out latest bluray players can output independent audio and video through 2 hdmi out! Probably thanks to HDMI 1.4a and 3D the extra bandwidth required...

AMD please consider this a feature of SI for great power economy savings. I dont have to always turn on my AVR nor do i need clone my display! uncompressed PCM multichannel audio whenever we want it

The 500 has my favorite feature these days. Dual HDMI outs. I love being able to send the audio to my Receiver or pre-pro while sending an untouched video straight to my projector. Many will argue there is not a difference. I sleep much better knowing my HDMI video path does not have to stop at any detours. It is like being on a toll road with a nonstop pass. Avoid the extra HDMI handshakes! Plus you never know some components like to change colorspaces.

http://hstrial-jrodriguez996.homeste...=1339663300647

Of course my favorite feature on a Blu ray player is Dual HDMI outs. I am still a firm believer in the road less traveled is the most optimal. Why send the video signal through a video processor or Receiver/pre-pro when you don't have to? The 100% best image you can achieve is going straight to your display. No detours! HDMI 1 goes to your display while HDMI 2 sends the audio to your Receiver/pre-pro. Easy! In the menu there is a AV Separation (pic below) setting you must engage.

http://hstrial-jrodriguez996.homeste...=1334438269345

[willardjuice]

While I don't have an amd gpu atm, I'll admit I would love that feature too. Using a "fake" (or hardly used) second monitor just for audio is annoying.