Display Mirroring, Would This Work?

seannymurrs

Distinguished
Nov 19, 2011
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18,510
Ok, here's my situation. My PC is currently in my den, along with my TV. I've contemplated hooking my PC up to my TV permanently, but there are some situations where I would much rather be sitting at a desk versus sitting on the couch. That being said, there are other times (most PC games) where I'd rather be playing on the big screen TV.

My question is this... Could I hook my current monitor up to my PC using the DVI port, and then run an HDMI cable to my TV and hook that up to the PC using the HDMI port. I don't need a dual monitor setup, so I would want to just mirror the desktop on both displays. Then, when I want to play from the couch I can turn the TV on and my monitor off, and when I want to sit at my desk I can just leave the TV off. I feel like technically this would work, the only thing I'm not sure about is how games would handle it. Would they run slower due to the mirrored desktop setup? Are there any other problems I'm missing? Any input would be appreciated.
 

B0L0

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Jan 11, 2011
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It should work.. I don't believe mirroring the screens has much of a performance impact, since I'm pretty sure the graphics card isn't generating 2 images, but rather passing the same image along 2 channels, but I've never tried so I'm not positive, regardless, you can always disable the monitor/TV on the computer depending on which you're using.

One thing to check for mirroring is it works best when the resolution on both displays are identical, its not impossible, but it gets messier when the display resolutions are different.