Does connecting your laptop to TV via HDMI decrease gaming performance?

Question

I have a laptop I use to game, its not a high-end one. My resolution is 1366 x 768, I'm thinking of getting a HDMI cable to try out gaming on the TV.

My card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 HD it supports eyefinity, when I use dual monitors to game it reduces the framerate by 3-5 FPS. Since my TV is a 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV, I'm wondering if it would take a major hit on my laptop?

Answer 1

In your situation I would connect the TV to the lappy and use just the TV as a screen; here's why:

1. The 100Hz refresh rate combined with the LED is going to make the refresh rate the same (or comparable) as the lappy.
2. The resolution is higher.
3. And you don't say the size of the laptop screen, but I assume it's less than 46 inches. So it'll be probably double or triple the screen size.

It's going to look bigger and higher res on the TV and the refresh rate shouldn't be noticeable to human eyes.

I have a similar set up: 27" FHD screen with 14" lappy. I recommend external keyboard and gaming grade mouse (preferably wireless).

Answer 2

Outputting your display to a TV does not inherently decrease gaming performance. If your laptop screen supports a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 and you try playing anything at 1080p (1920 x 1080) you're naturally going to experience a degradation in refresh rate (regardless of whether it's a TV or a regular monitor) as compared to your usual 1366x768 display.

That said, I'll try to answer your question because it's not very clear. If you are using the TV as the only display your laptop is showing at the native resolution of 1366 x 768, it should be updating at the same rate as if it were on the screen of the laptop. If you're duplicating screens or extending display across your screen and TV, you will of course experience a bit of decrease of performance. Any time your computer has to draw more pixels every refresh, you will of course be using more GPU power to draw it all.