how to connect two HDready monitors (expand view) for home-office AND one 4K TV (single view) for gaming

[Kamikaze01]

Hi there

Unfortunately, the topic doesn't fit anywhere else, so I'll post it here under "others".

I have an Nvidia RTX 2080 and all kinds of connections for monitors and TV(s).

I already connected 2 monitors via display port (extended view) for my home-office work, which works perfectly.

But now I also want to connect my large 65 inch 4k TV via HDMI.
This also works, but I have 2 Problems:


1) i have to choose which of the two home-office monitors I want to clone.
For example, if I clone screen 1, but have a window/program open on screen 2, I can no longer see this window/program on the HDMI-connected TV.

2) The resolution for the 65 inch 4k TV is only that of the cheap home-office screen.


Is there a way to use two monitors for home-office in expand view but connect a large TV for gaming WITHOUT the problems mentioned?

Thank you

 

[Tech Junky]

The first things that come to mind are docking stations and KVMs.

I looked around for a little bit and what complicates things is DP vs HDMI as you tend to get inputs of DP and outputs of HDMI which doesn't quite get you where you want to be, I'm thinking though maybe get 2 docking stations to leave the monitors connected to and then just switch the USB cable when you want to use 4K. Another option could be using a HDMI >> DP converter ($6) but, IIRC most GPU's only have 2 DP ports on them. Still a cable switching situation. Though more manageable with all 3 being DP. Something like MSTDP123DP / $150 might work to condense things into a single USB-A cable / 3 x DP output.

4K 1x3 DisplayPort 1.2 to HDMI MST Hub Splitter

Allows you to easily connect up to 3 HDMI monitors from a single DisplayPort 1.2 port with Multi-Stream Transport (MST) technology

www.siig.com

I guess the term you're searching for based on these would be MST and they seem to fall in the $150 range.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JLRBB8I/?tag=snbforums-20 - $90 v1.3
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0839LTNFK/?tag=snbforums-20 - $140 v1.4

The other option would be getting a cheaper DP GPU for the work stuff and keeping the 4K on the 2080 for gaming.

 

[Kamikaze01]

Wow...
Thank u so much for your quick answer and efforts/tips !!!

I will look and dive into your thoughts.

Problem is, that sometimes in the afternoon I play games with the two monitors,... But also sometimes on my big 65 inch TV.
So I want my RTX2080 to manage that all and not my onboard GPU.

Best think would be to get one these 49inch super wide-screen Monitor for Home Office and playing.
Then I just have to clone it to my TV I think...

Anyway: thank U very much for your answer so far. !!!

 

[Tech Junky]

Yeah, different size screens / resolutions makes it a bit more complicated and 3 vs 2 adds to the issue. The 2080 though should be able to handle all 3 it's more of an OS issue with Windows being a bit dumb. The only other thing I can think of is power off one of the small monitors and wait for windows to see that and then turn on the TV and it should pick up the signal and extend to that as the 2nd monitor. I mean there are use cases where people daisy chain 8 screens to a card so, 3 shouldn't be a far stretch. When I was running a Surface Pro I used a docking station to run dual displays in addition to the touchscreen and it worked fine but they were only 1080 16:9. 4K wants more bandwidth and one of the charts from a link above was showing 2 x 2K + FHD hits 90%+ for bandwidth but, a 4K + 2x1080 should still fall within the same constraints.

Another thing comes to mind is using a Thunderbolt card for higher bandwidth for DP / daisy chaining things. I picked up a TB4 card off Amazon for $60 for data but, it would work for video. I grabbed a "used" one which basically was a return because it wasn't likely compatible with someone's MOBO which was probably an Asus as it doesn't have the 14-pin header they use. Normally they're ~$140 so, it was an easy decision. With the data enclosure I can hit 3GB/s and with the power connectors hooked up to the card I can charge at 100W which is a nice backup option. I can also plug my 5G gateway into one of the ports for power instead of using the wart and taking up another outlet.