In a recent discovery, one of the Linux developers, Rafał Miłecki, have been wondering why audio for HDMI wasn't working with his HD 4850 card when using a cheap generic DVI-HDMI. It turns out, the closed-source Catalyst driver will prevent the full operation of the HDMI output when using any adapter not made by AMD. It's currently not known why AMD had made this sudden move, but the current assumption is that it was done on purpose; maybe a competition-like move, a similar theory with Apple's competitive strategy? Other users though claimed it's because of the HDCP requirement, but that doesn't make alot of sense because if a generic adapter was blocked because of the "new" requirements, the announcement by the creator of HDCP (lol Intel) would've gone public, including towards 3rd party manufacturers of their non-AMD adapter.
If this move has to do with your shares, wrong one there, AMD. It might as well be open-source drivers from now on. So what's next, AMD to announce their proprietary video I/O adapter? Like Apple's propiretary Lightning Port™?
For some AMD Radeon graphics cards when using the Catalyst driver, the HDMI audio support isn't enabled unless using the simple DVI to HDMI adapter included with the graphics card itself...
included with the graphics card itself
For errm FREE! but i dont realy see why it whont work with a differnt one there just adapters.
I am interested in what AMD has put in there apaptors, i amuse they are just shorting some unused pin or adding a resistor as they would not want to spend lots on making these adapters.
Non-issue, was more than 5 years ago and they've stopped doing it years ago.
The last generation of cards they did it on was the 4000-series, not many people even use those anymore, and at the time where they were bought, it was not usual for users (other than maybe some linux-users) to use the video card as sound card (and for the linux-users it was never a problem, because the open source driver didn't block the sound function).
The simple fact that it comes to light more than 5 years after the facts is testimony enough to the fact that it didn't have any impact whatsoever.
No they added an EEPROM to the interface, and the card works normally, except that only with the proprietary driver (Catalyst), the driver itself blocks the sound output through software if it doesn't recognize that EEPROM. The adapter with the EEPROM was supplied with the card, it was at a time where there was great confusion about the HDMI norm, my guess is AMD just wanted to make sure that users would connect the right adapter in order to prevent mishaps?
I used to get annoying HDMI devices detected with sound capability messageboxes all teh time with my 3 eyefinity screens and 1 TV. I can assure you, I'm using atleast 1 DVI to HDMI adaptor.
While those catalyst messageboxes are annoying (altough I believe it has been fixed since 13.6, not sure), I think it proves what Zoltan says, That its not applicable on recent hardware.
Oh yeah, one more thing, if Logan and the crew would like to go in-depth about this in the upcoming Tek, can anyone notify (PM) me? I am a bit too busy to be able to watch The Tek.
Well i don't know about that Linux developer, but I use a generic $2 HDMI-DVI adapter (I got off eBay) with one of my monitors and it works great. I have two actually and they both work. I also have the latest beta drivers installed as well.
Ummmm aren't we all missing something really blatant like the fact that DVI was never designed to carry audio. Nor the fact that I'm pretty sure you can't output audio from the AMD Graphics card DVI port. Only on the HDMI directly.
I`m pretty sure you can output audio from a new AMD graphics card DVI port. BUT you must use a DVI to HDMI adaptor.. and I`m also pretty sure that AMD/ATI used, unused pins to accomodate this hence why an aftermarket one wouldn`t work.