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I have a video card and a sound card. My Monitor has a audio jack which just forwards the audio signal from the HDMI cable. But the cable is connected to my video card and for sound, only the onboard chip is used.
Is there a way to use the audio signal from my actual sound card with the HDMI cable connected to my video card?
danijar
Posted 2013-08-11T09:48:08.963
Reputation: 389
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While some graphics cards have an internal S/PDIF port to allow passing audio through to HDMI, newer graphics cards, such as your GTX 470, have done away with it and instead route audio through the PCI-e bus.
Since we're talking about purely digital sound at this point, the graphics card should be able to produce the same quality sound as your sound card. The quality of the audio is largely determined by the DAC your audio goes through somewhere along the line. Here's a very informative thread about the subject: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1648732
Robert Rouhani
Posted 2013-08-11T09:48:08.963
Reputation: 323
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Digital audio & video have a latency/delay. If using hdmi as video output, you should also route the audio through the hdmi, and for sure not use the sound card (or motherboard) analog output. Otherwise you lose the sync between audio & video. To use different equipment for sound playback than the hdmi receiving device, you have to route the sound from that device to another device.
There are devices which enable you to merge an audio signal into an hdmi signal, but these are rather expensive pro-AV equipment, which you don't want to bother yourself with. Just use the hdmi audio driver when using hdmi for video output to keep everything in sync.
Concerning sound quality: This will depend on the quality of your DAC (=digital to analog converter). Hdmi is a digital stream of data, the playback device will (most probable) be the DAC of your hdmi receiving device. A soundcard has it's own DAC. The best quality will be provided by the which of both has the best DAC. (standard soundcards use budget DAC's, cheap monitors/TV's have the same)
Aszazin
Posted 2013-08-11T09:48:08.963
Reputation: 11
Which graphics card do you have? Some cards have an SPDIF port designed for exactly this. See: http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?478709-HDMI-AUDIO-passthrough
– Robert Rouhani – 2013-08-11T10:02:54.240It is a GTX 470 and as far as I can see there is no sound input. Is there no way then? – danijar – 2013-08-11T10:11:30.020
Yeah, it looks like the GTX 400 series and beyond routes audio via the PCI-e bus. FWIW, Your graphics card should be able to output the same quality sound. I say that since it's still all digital at that point, quality will be primarily determined by the quality of the DAC the audio is run through further down the line. Here's a great forum thread on the subject: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1648732
– Robert Rouhani – 2013-08-11T10:31:27.400