Integrating games laptop into surround sound and TV screen?

[CopperBolt]

Hi

If I wanted a laptop HDMI output connected to my TV, I presume the best way would be to site the laptop near the TV and use a normal length HDMI cable to connect it into one of my surround amps HDMI inputs and then on to the telly?

I would then need bluetooth Mouse/keyboard/xbox style controller to operate the laptop from the armchair and run games on it. Is this possible?

I gather a wireless ps3 or ps4 controller can be used with a bluetooth dongle and a little utility program to recognise inputs?

Would the surround sound "travel down" the HDMI cable connection to the amp and thence on to my 5.1 speakers? I *think* thats how my blu-ray player and PS4 transmit their surround sound but I could be wrong.

Cheers all.

[Mr_Yogi]

CopperBolt said:

Hi

If I wanted a laptop HDMI output connected to my TV, I presume the best way would be to site the laptop near the TV and use a normal length HDMI cable to connect it into one of my surround amps HDMI inputs and then on to the telly?

I would then need bluetooth Mouse/keyboard/xbox style controller to operate the laptop from the armchair and run games on it. Is this possible?

I gather a wireless ps3 or ps4 controller can be used with a bluetooth dongle and a little utility program to recognise inputs?

Would the surround sound "travel down" the HDMI cable connection to the amp and thence on to my 5.1 speakers? I *think* thats how my blu-ray player and PS4 transmit their surround sound but I could be wrong.

Cheers all.

That should work, but you might find a bit of latency going through the amp, which might make it feel a bit laggy?

You can get Xbox one controllers with a USB wireless dongle which work seamlessly with Windows PCs.

[CopperBolt]

Mr_Yogi said:

That should work, but you might find a bit of latency going through the amp, which might make it feel a bit laggy?

You can get Xbox one controllers with a USB wireless dongle which work seamlessly with Windows PCs.

Thanks for that.

I there anyway to get round the potential lag?

[Mastodon2]

Maybe I'm missing something, why would there be audio lag? Surely connecting a laptop to the amp via HDMI is no different to connecting an Xbox or a Playstation to the amp in the same way?

One thing to remember OP, when you connect to the TV, use the Windows button and the P key to set your screen mode, then select "second screen only". This will deactivate the screen on your laptop and allow the games to match your TV screen. You may still need to do some fiddling in the options menus for your games to get the resolution right. If you use the "duplicate screen" option, your laptop will render the image twice, which is unnecessary stress for the GPU / CPU and you'll see a framerate drop when running more demanding games.

[Mr_Yogi]

Mastodon2 said:

Maybe I'm missing something, why would there be audio lag? Surely connecting a laptop to the amp via HDMI is no different to connecting an Xbox or a Playstation to the amp in the same way?

One thing to remember OP, when you connect to the TV, use the Windows button and the P key to set your screen mode, then select "second screen only". This will deactivate the screen on your laptop and allow the games to match your TV screen. You may still need to do some fiddling in the options menus for your games to get the resolution right. If you use the "duplicate screen" option, your laptop will render the image twice, which is unnecessary stress for the GPU / CPU and you'll see a framerate drop when running more demanding games.

Not audio lag, input lag. Some TV's have quite a bit, some even despite "game mode", then if you are going through the amp you might get a bit more? so it might be better to go direct to the TV. It's just a possibility.

[CopperBolt]

As has been mentioned, any input lag would also occur with the PS4 I have connected via HDMI -> AMP -> TV so would imagine it would be fine.
Good tip about second screen only.
Have since pondered that as the laptop would really only be used through the telly, I may as well get a desktop type (preferably smallish case) and use that instead. Should get more bang for my buck as I wont need the screen the laptop comes with. So more money could go towards processor/graphics.

Have found one by company called Novatech, specs :

Motherboard
Gigabyte H310M S2H Micro-ATX Motherboard

Processor
9th Generation Intel Core i5 9400F 2.9GHz Processor

Memory
8GB (1x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 2666MHz Memory

Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

M.2 Storage
1 x Novatech Build Stock 240GB NVME M.2 Solid State Drive

Hard Disk Storage
1 x Novatech Build Stock 1TB 3.5 HDD

[Jinx]

CopperBolt said:

As has been mentioned, any input lag would also occur with the PS4 I have connected via HDMI -> AMP -> TV so would imagine it would be fine.
Good tip about second screen only.
Have since pondered that as the laptop would really only be used through the telly, I may as well get a desktop type (preferably smallish case) and use that instead. Should get more bang for my buck as I wont need the screen the laptop comes with. So more money could go towards processor/graphics.

Have found one by company called Novatech, specs :

Motherboard
Gigabyte H310M S2H Micro-ATX Motherboard

Processor
9th Generation Intel Core i5 9400F 2.9GHz Processor

Memory
8GB (1x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 2666MHz Memory

Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

M.2 Storage
1 x Novatech Build Stock 240GB NVME M.2 Solid State Drive

Hard Disk Storage
1 x Novatech Build Stock 1TB 3.5 HDD

Price? I'd up the RAM to 16GB (two sticks- Dual channel) - and push for a 1660 Super (or Ti).

[CopperBolt]

Jinx said:

Price? I'd up the RAM to 16GB (two sticks- Dual channel) - and push for a 1660 Super (or Ti).

£859 inc VAT with windows 10 on and with 16GB. Graphics unchanged.

[Jinx]

CopperBolt said:

£859 inc VAT with windows 10 on and with 16GB. Graphics unchanged.

Not a bad price - if you are ok with a 1 year warranty it might be worth checking out Dell Outlet as there is a nice XPS system in that price range on there.