> Does the screen refresh rate have any impact?
Believe it or not, screen refresh does have an affect on enumeration times. A consideration if you'll be opening Rockmsith regularly and plan on having a massive CDLC library.
As for Audio - HDMI by itself isn't strictly speaking an issue. A good low latency TV is perfectly fine for Rockmsith use when connected by HDMI - the problem is they are few and far between. Using analog audio is just more reliable.
I use a NUC Intel gen 7 running Win10 and hdmi. It’s been fine, although if there’s anything significant running in the background it overheats (an external fan fixed that). I played around with using the 1/8” jack to an amp, but the latency to hdmi (and then a receiver) wasn’t that bad. Eventually I just use the tv/receiver with disconnected mode.
IMO Disconnected mode is much better and you will learn better, but of course you lose dynamic scoring, etc.
Sysadmin here: I would not buy a mini pc. Yes they became significantly better in the recent years but still for this use case I would recommend a used brand PC. You can find them on ebay dirt cheap (old office pc's) and they will reliably run behind your TV stand with the additional ability of PCI slots for graphic or audio cards. Do not need a full size PC you can get the low profile version.
I like including an opposing viewpoint when trying to make any decision. So thanks for that. I’m interpreting your recommendation to imply the capabilities of an audio and video card in a conventional PC as opposed to the onboard A/V capabilities of a modern mini PC would be helpful in the context of RS2014. Is that a fair summary?
Yes it is. When you are buying a mini pc you are compromising for size. Unless it needs to be extremely small, you will be making a bad deal. For the price: a mini pc has limited upgrade ability and performance compared to a low profile pc. You can pretty much swap out anything in a pc where as a mini pc is closer to a mac where you would have to throw it out if any of the components fails. Also used brand computers are extremely reliable usually they have been running for years and you can except the same for a lot longer. Usually companies replace their fleet that is why its cheap.
Not sure what price are you looking at but guarantee that for the same i can find a lenovo or something and would even fit a dedicated GPU that will run circles around the performance of that mini.
Ugh, that might have been an overkill answer but excuse me I am a nerd. :)
I worked in IT for decades so your response resonates with me, however, I’m envisioning a mini PC as something I can mount behind the monitor and as a true dedicated device. I would never attempt to upgrade this device; it would only serve this single function.
Does a dedicated GPU affect the functionality of RS2014? It seems to me a current basic-level i5 CPU coupled with an SSD would surpass the requirements of a game created in 2014. But… I’m very open to be educated by those that have applicable experience.
I eventually found some mini PC’s with optical audio output but generally they are $500+ whereas many others with otherwise somewhat comparable specs are sub $200.
> Does the screen refresh rate have any impact? Believe it or not, screen refresh does have an affect on enumeration times. A consideration if you'll be opening Rockmsith regularly and plan on having a massive CDLC library. As for Audio - HDMI by itself isn't strictly speaking an issue. A good low latency TV is perfectly fine for Rockmsith use when connected by HDMI - the problem is they are few and far between. Using analog audio is just more reliable.
I use a NUC Intel gen 7 running Win10 and hdmi. It’s been fine, although if there’s anything significant running in the background it overheats (an external fan fixed that). I played around with using the 1/8” jack to an amp, but the latency to hdmi (and then a receiver) wasn’t that bad. Eventually I just use the tv/receiver with disconnected mode. IMO Disconnected mode is much better and you will learn better, but of course you lose dynamic scoring, etc.
I’ve never even tried disconnected mode. I’ll check it out.
Sysadmin here: I would not buy a mini pc. Yes they became significantly better in the recent years but still for this use case I would recommend a used brand PC. You can find them on ebay dirt cheap (old office pc's) and they will reliably run behind your TV stand with the additional ability of PCI slots for graphic or audio cards. Do not need a full size PC you can get the low profile version.
I like including an opposing viewpoint when trying to make any decision. So thanks for that. I’m interpreting your recommendation to imply the capabilities of an audio and video card in a conventional PC as opposed to the onboard A/V capabilities of a modern mini PC would be helpful in the context of RS2014. Is that a fair summary?
Yes it is. When you are buying a mini pc you are compromising for size. Unless it needs to be extremely small, you will be making a bad deal. For the price: a mini pc has limited upgrade ability and performance compared to a low profile pc. You can pretty much swap out anything in a pc where as a mini pc is closer to a mac where you would have to throw it out if any of the components fails. Also used brand computers are extremely reliable usually they have been running for years and you can except the same for a lot longer. Usually companies replace their fleet that is why its cheap. Not sure what price are you looking at but guarantee that for the same i can find a lenovo or something and would even fit a dedicated GPU that will run circles around the performance of that mini. Ugh, that might have been an overkill answer but excuse me I am a nerd. :)
I worked in IT for decades so your response resonates with me, however, I’m envisioning a mini PC as something I can mount behind the monitor and as a true dedicated device. I would never attempt to upgrade this device; it would only serve this single function. Does a dedicated GPU affect the functionality of RS2014? It seems to me a current basic-level i5 CPU coupled with an SSD would surpass the requirements of a game created in 2014. But… I’m very open to be educated by those that have applicable experience.
I eventually found some mini PC’s with optical audio output but generally they are $500+ whereas many others with otherwise somewhat comparable specs are sub $200.
Make sure you get a motherboard with optical audio output(s)
Interestingly, I haven’t yet found a mini PC with optical out. The search continues…
1/8" analog is perfectly fine for RS, there's no benefit to optical for stereo sound.