Gaming PC with TV in living room setup?

[AqD]

Anyone has a setup like that?

I moved PC closer to TV (a big gaming monitor actually) with a small monitor for browsing, and plan to replace the big monitor with large TV next year. So far it hasn't been too convenient to watch or play anything on that.

Some problems I experienced:

- They're arranged as two displays, and mouse pointer could be lost very easily (a pair of mouse+kb for small monitor and a wireless pair for TV). I also thought about making duplicated display but the resolutions can never match. Bigger monitor is QHD now and will be 4K because nobody makes non-4K TV anymore, while small monitor can't go 4K or require different text scale.

- With TV there seems to be no good sitting position for playing real games with keyboard and mouse. Sofa won't be ergonomic and desk would block the view and movement. It's particularly difficult to use mouse.

- Can't do separate and independent things on the small monitor and the big one. Or have separated audio. There is some multi-user/display support on Linux but I'm using Windows exclusively now. Don't want two computers because aside from high cost it'd be messy to configure both and keep everything in sync.

What else can I try? Screen mirroring? but that would have delay at least 5yr ago. Or give up and buy a console? console games feel stupid...

[AqD]

solved the third problem partially by this new "App volume and device preferences" feature in Windows 10:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

for control, something that confine mouse to each monitor would be nice...

[z3n]

Not sure what you want to do exactly since I'm not familiar with the setup or goal. Have you considered buying a new console when they come out (PS5 or whatever)

You could try to stream from one monitor to the other, latency should be almost non existent since you're in the same house, just make sure you have the bandwidth for it.

[AqD]

In short I want the PC to be the center of all things and two sets of display+kb+mouse for different activities, and make the TV+sofa suitable for PC gaming and being able to lock game to either one of the displays. I understand it's not what things are designed for, just wonder if anyone has similar experience?

I have prepared very long HDMI and DP cables in place of wireless for streaming / connectivity.

For the first problem: perhaps it'd be okay to duplicated displays with GPU scaling down from 4K to 2K for TV, or upscaling for the small monitor native 4K gaming would put serious strain on my poor 1060 anyway.

[Condottiere 40K]

Let's see if I understand what you've planned.

You want to upgrade your television, and make it part of a two monitor set up in your living room; that's fine, this is the year to do that. I bought a Sony OLED on sale and dug out two table monitor arms from storage, and attached those to the current television stand.

OLED technology peaked last year, and whatever Samsung is tweaking with LED tubes, mini, micro or nano, is going to take another five years to be consumer ready; next year, the cheap Chinese stuff should be coming to market which is pressurizing the Koreans to innovate, whether with QLED or eight kay.

I'm a little paranoid with burnin for OLED, though I've been assured for the current batch of models this has been resolved somewhat. Cleaning the screen is a pain, since handling by myself, I had greasy fingerprints all over the edges, due to the non existence of bezels; will wear gloves next time, though there is an issue of grip, and the lucky discovery that fifty five inches is all i can handle by myself. Anything larger, you will probably should get professional to install it, or some very careful and trusted friends to assist you.

Since the burnin issue made me want to duplicate the image on a smaller, cheaper and non OLED monitor, you still would have to buy one with a four kay screen; I considered the matter, and since it would be on a monitor, sticking out into the living room, I thought I would first try out some cheap disposable twenty twoish screen, to see if it gets knocked around; thirty two inches is the current sweet spot for actual monitors, especially if you're going for four kay, and you probably have to budget in another three to four hundred bucks.

Next generation of consoles are going to be mindbreakingly fast, and going by what's been demonstrated, beautifully pictured; assuming the price is five hundred bucks for the complete variants, considering the hardware involved, a slightly powered down thirty seven hundred ecks, the latest graphics technology from Ai Em Dee, and really fast memory and storage, that's a bargain, as any personal computer builder will tell you.

The cabling should have the bandwidth to deliver the amount of data between card and screen, especially at four kay sixty.

Since this project is meant to be scaled up slowly, as I feel I would like my current primary monitor to die, a forty seven inch El Gee which I bought from a flea market about four years ago for about a hundred and fifty, and believe has just passed it's twelfth birthday, it's surprisingly still going strong. As I wanted to upgrade to enjoy four kay media, I started research on televisions, and discovered they're probably still good for ten years of usage; current differences are about how much colour and picture distortion you're willing to tolerate.

My superceded twenty seven hundred and nvidia ten sixty have no problem with four kay movies, though I may have experienced lag when I was full sizing 1080p in the media player (Star Trek Enterprise, which I had decided it's time to watch); as I've always maintained, computer ecosystems need to be balanced, in other words, you probably will have to budget in a GeForce 3060, or better 3070.

As regards to seating arrangements, since my feeling is that neither couch nor dedicated computer chair will meet your stringent conditions, a variant of slide back lazy chair with foot rest, beanbag, or a large bunch of cushions.

Easiest would be an extra small side table for mouse and keyboard, though mouse armrests are cheap and easy to obtain.

[Love Mountain]

Let's see if I understand what you've planned.

You want to upgrade your television, and make it part of a two monitor set up in your living room; that's fine, this is the year to do that. I bought a Sony OLED on sale and dug out two table monitor arms from storage, and attached those to the current television stand.

OLED technology peaked last year, and whatever Samsung is tweaking with LED tubes, mini, micro or nano, is going to take another five years to be consumer ready; next year, the cheap Chinese stuff should be coming to market which is pressurizing the Koreans to innovate, whether with QLED or eight kay.

I'm a little paranoid with burnin for OLED, though I've been assured for the current batch of models this has been resolved somewhat. Cleaning the screen is a pain, since handling by myself, I had greasy fingerprints all over the edges, due to the non existence of bezels; will wear gloves next time, though there is an issue of grip, and the lucky discovery that fifty five inches is all i can handle by myself. Anything larger, you will probably should get professional to install it, or some very careful and trusted friends to assist you.

Since the burnin issue made me want to duplicate the image on a smaller, cheaper and non OLED monitor, you still would have to buy one with a four kay screen; I considered the matter, and since it would be on a monitor, sticking out into the living room, I thought I would first try out some cheap disposable twenty twoish screen, to see if it gets knocked around; thirty two inches is the current sweet spot for actual monitors, especially if you're going for four kay, and you probably have to budget in another three to four hundred bucks.

Next generation of consoles are going to be mindbreakingly fast, and going by what's been demonstrated, beautifully pictured; assuming the price is five hundred bucks for the complete variants, considering the hardware involved, a slightly powered down thirty seven hundred ecks, the latest graphics technology from Ai Em Dee, and really fast memory and storage, that's a bargain, as any personal computer builder will tell you.

As a different question, do you know anything about TVs Condottiere? Cuz I'm pretty sure all OLEDs are manufactured by LG at the moment. Who makes the best implementation of OLED at the moment? Is it LG or Sony or someone else?

[AqD]

@Condottiere thanks for the warning about OLED. I do not wish to spend so much money on TV actually. Review says Panasonic's have good graphics and it's well below $1000, although I haven't checked latency and other gaming issues.

I found something for the kb+mouse:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and

[Condottiere 40K]

1. The list of OLED display manufacturers:Taiwan AU Optronics
China BOE
China China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT)
Taiwan Chunghwa Picture Tubes[11]
China EverDisplay Optronics
Japan Futaba Corporation(former TDK[12][13])
Taiwan InnoLux Corporation[14]
South Korea LG Display
Japan JOLED (Japan OLED)[15]
Japan Kyocera[16]
United States LXD Incorporated
Japan Pioneer Corporation[17][18][19]
United States Planar Systems
China Royole
Taiwan Ritek (RiT Display)[20]
South Korea Samsung Electronics (Samsung Display)
Japan Sony[21]
Japan Sharp Corporation[22]
China Tianma
Hong Kong Truly Semiconductors
China Visionox[23]
Taiwan Wisechip

2. Most indications are that the Chinese OLED manufacturers plan to flood the market in twenty two or twenty three; due to the current economic and geopolitic situation, I think they'll fast track to next year; I don't recall which one(s) are thirsty to acquire the Japanese jet printesque manufacturing technology by acquiring a stake in them, though I suspect the Japanese government is now less inclined to permit technology transfer to China.

3. I tend to keep track on monitor prices, not television, in order to figure out if I'm getting a bargain; I move about the screens, so schlepping around a really heavy large screen television has never been an attractive proposition, so not worth my time and effort (in the sense that older large screen televisions are both bulky and really heavy); the base price of second hand sub twenty five inchers is now ten bucks, plus whatever you think it's worth to you and actual age. I no longer go out of my way to acquire one, but if I do run across a really attractively priced monitor or television in that size range, why not? They fit into luggage.

4. The lockdown pushed me into thinking it's time for an upgrade, so I started studying the television market; televisions give you more bang for buck when compared to monitors, but I'm told it's because the manufacturers supplement their income by having it spy on you to discover your viewing habits, and it's probably a good bet that the Chinese variants have a lot of backdoors, so it's balancing out between how much your privacy is worth to you to having a relatively cheap screen. I'd avoid the ones with inbuilt cameras and microphones, though specifications read that there's supposedly a microphone in my new remote control.

5. Figure out your budget for the entire upgrade ahead of time, that way you won't have to deal with hidden costs; that means everything involved, not just the screen.

6. As mentioned previously, the difference in screens is your tolerance for colour and picture distortions; besides the potential for burn in due to a prolonged static screen, OLED makes deeper blacks and looks better in a bright room, while I'm informed that QLED has the edge in darker rooms, and for the vast majority of people, you probably won't notice much difference between the two.

7. I don't like paying full price for anything electronic, and I got my Sony kd55ag8 for about twenty five percent off retail; anything higher becomes a case of diminishing returns, as mentioned fifty five inches of modern television is just at the border of what I can (un)comfortably handle by myself, much like forty seven inches of the older heavier El Gee; it actually came down to the Sony or a forty nine inch thirty/nine aspect ratio monitor, the deciding factor was that four kay is the future, and unless there's some mechanism to get rid of the black bars under and over the movies without me screwing around over multiple screens adjusting the media player, 1440p wasn't really worth it; unless I come across a really cheap one.

8. The premium brands that have been mentioned are Sony, El Gee, Samsung and Panasonic, though don't take that as an endorsement, since I'm looking at specifications and word of mouth, not actual experience. TCL and HiSense have been mentioned as really attractively priced variants, especially for their picture quality; again, this isn't my field, and companies can source their low end, mid range, and premium products from different factories.

9. I'm told OLED technology plateaued last year, possibly twenty eighteen, and what's happening now are cosmetic tweaks and minor improvements; value added is eight kay, probably not worth it for the vast majority of users at current prices. Next up is probably paper thin, wallpaper, bendable, edges so thin you could modularize it without losing pixel density.

[AqD]

Thanks a lot for the info @Condottiere!

[z3n]

Lots of great information there. I wasnt aware the data collection methods had spread to all manufacturers but I can confirm I've heard similar rumours about Amazon fire TVs and suspicions about other devices with microphones Google Home, Amazon Alexa etc.

Some people even suspect phones of doing this nowadays so I suppose it will be something of a wild west until laws start coming into play. In general if it can connect to the internet, it is suspect to tampering or data collection.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. It's now legal to wear a facemask.

2. Though the Chinese have now developed gait recognition software, which they did I think last year, in response to dazzle clothing and make up.

3. Use non descript clothing.

4. Leave electronic devices at home, or loan them out to your friends; probably best to leave the website whitelist activated.


As regards mirroring or duplication, unless you have a device that does this perfectly, probably do it internally within the graphic chip, since a discrete graphic card has four outputs, where Windows display can mirror the display on two screens.

[AqD]

@Condottiere I did some checking and it seems OLED is no good for bright living room at all (everything in my new home must face the sun), instead it should be a VA panel, full array with local dimming for max brightness and high contrast. Also IPS is out due to bad color and contrast.

The under $1000 choices are down to Sony X950G (old 2019 models, huge discount) vs Samsung QLED, Q70+ (Q60 and below suck). Any opinions on them?

[Condottiere 40K]

1. Oops, got that the wrong way round: the reason OLED is a dead end technology is because they can't stuff in more lighting, without increasing the chance of burn in, but it remains superior in showing blacks in a darkened room, and why Samsung sort of bet the farm on QLED, and now eight kay.

2. So the trick is to stuff in more lighting without blurring either colour or picture.

3. So QLED or some variant thereof for the sunny side of life.

4. Funny thing is, IPS is supposedly the better choice for monitors; admittingly, mostly don't care because I pick up what was available and cheap.

5. I like to point out that your entire ecosystem should be in balance, whether for price and/or performance, so you don't end up with either bottlenecks or unexpected costs.

6. I suspect I saw the retail prices and bumped them off the list; the reference numbers don't seem to match exactly anything locally, so I'll make some informed speculation.

7. First figure out the ideal size, which depends on how far you plan to sit away from the screen, at an angle you feel comfortable with; I'm at six feet with both the forty seven and fifty five inches. As I write this, it's about four feet with the fifty five, with my eyeballs ping ponging across the reply box.

8. Sony 9505/55": I have the native refresh rate listed at fifty.

9. Samsung Q70/55": FreeSync, one hundred twenty refresh rate, and I'll assume about half the price of the Sony? Wait, you're getting them for below a thousand.

10. The Samsung looks a better bet for primarily gaming; narrow viewing may not be an issue. It's possible that the Sony is better for watching video.

[AqD]

4. Funny thing is, IPS is supposedly the better choice for monitors; admittingly, mostly don't care because I pick up what was available and cheap.

I'm wondering that too. Haven't checked for a few years and it's weird that both of curved TVs and high end IPS TVs are gone. Even LG NANO90 series are bad and all the reviews I read tell people not to buy LG's non-OLED TVs, which are the only ones still using IPS.

I do have a rotatable TV stand reserved for this situation.

[Condottiere 40K]

As I recall, it was mostly to do with the viewing angle, TN being rather bad at that.

Actual picture quality, I couldn't make a comparison; also one reason there was a push to LED/OLED.

All things being equal, refresh rate and GPU synchronization then becomes important.

[AqD]

Settled for a refurbished Q80T (new model just arrived here; 30% off ). Video quality seems great compared to old LED TV 5 years ago and viewing angle is good too, a new change in 2020 models.

But connection from PC... hmmm, more minor problems:

1. HDR on Windows doesn't work with dual screens in duplication mode, even if both monitors support HDR (not verified but that's a stopper for 2nd HDR monitor). Extend doesn't work well with TW games, so no HDR for me. Couldn't tell the difference from movies though. Online comparisons are garbage because their SDR use default settings.
2. Can use 12-bit color depth from GTX 1060 with 2K, but for some reason it's for 2K only. Black/gray is much better with the depth. So no 4K.
3. TV has to be the primary monitor in duplication mode or serious tearing. The primary/secondary for duplication is configurable in NVIDIA control panel (multiple displays > right click on primary -> clone with ..).
4. Videos from TV's own apps have higher quality in some tiny, usually-overlooked details (like reflection on handrail). But there is no way to get the HDMI ARC or surround optical audio back to PC. Trying bluetooth now. Worst case would be to get some old high-end AVR to be used as AV processor / input switch.
5. Motion/post processing needs to be turned off or latency would be visible. Don't need game mode.

[Love Mountain]

Sounds like a Fantastic TV mate, gratz!

[Condottiere 40K]

Probably the better intermediate term decision.

My duplicator is on hold, since a twenty eightyish incher costs on sale just a tad under two hundred bux, with the minimum specifications they can get away with, next up would be an Iiyama at around three hundred with IPS and seventy five hertz; unless I come across a four kay monitor at the local flea markets, I'll make do with a thirty two secondary that I swapped from another work station.

Also a more pragmatic reason, since my ten eighty is really straining, so I'm building up the fund for a new graphic card, and lo and behold:

1And when Jensen was fifty years old and seven, the LORD appeared to Jensen and said unto him, I am the Almighty Moore; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

2And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.

3And Jensen fell on his face: and Moore talked with him, saying,

4As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many cards.

5Neither shall thy name any more be called Jen, but thy name shall be Jensen; for a father of many cards have I made thee.

6And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make cards of thee, and halo products shall come out of thee.

7And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy architectures after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy nodes after thee.

8And I will give unto thee, and to thy architectures after thee, the land wherein thou art a villain, all the land of Gamerz, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

[AqD]

my 1060 was also laggy with AC Odyssey on 1440p / highest settings, one of the reasons I don't want 4k for now.

But given the money required to upgrade and the extremely short life of GPU (I bought 1060 only two years ago...), might as well get a VR set or surround speakers instead? VR games are stupid but nice exercise.

[Condottiere 40K]

Since Thursday, no second hand graphic card is worth more than four hundred bux.

Also, this week I think Ai Em Dee has started clearing inventory in the run up to Ryzen Three launch, while Intel has been doing that for the past two months.