Quick guide on outputting your PC to a TV via HDMI

[Maypews]

If you've ever had the misfortune of engaging in a faggy online console war, you've probably inevitably seen the PCMR comeback of "Bro just output your PC to a TV!". This is pretty much always nowhere near as convenient as a console is because you can't just navigate everything with a controller from the couch, you have to get up and walk over to your pc in order to open the game you want with the mouse, change the audio device and it's just a hassle that ruins the entire mood. So anyway after literal years of coping with a shitty setup and hours of scavenging I think I have finally streamlined the process to a reasonable degree where you can just turn the tv on and launch a game from the couch just as you would on a console without any extra bullshit, so I'm going to share it to prevent anyone else here from wasting away in this AIDS-inducing rabbithole (on Windows, at least).

In order to do this you'll need;
JoyXOff
Monitor Profile Switcher
An Xbox Controller (a Wireless adapter is also good if you want the true experience)

JoyXOff is a really neat program that lets you use your controller on your desktop like a mouse cursor. You can even press LS to get an on-screen keyboard, and use right stick to scroll in web browsers. The program automatically switches from desktop mode into controller bindings once it detects a fullscreen application.

Monitor Profile Switcher essentially allows you to change your profile in the Monitor Settings with hotkeys. So go to your monitor settings and set it up how you want to; for my main PC monitor I set the display res to 1980x1080 and multiple displays setting to only show it. Then you open the Profile Switcher GUI (which will appear in your action centre), right click on it and save profile -> new profile. After that I repeated the steps for my TV, changed the resolution to 3840x2160, set it to turn my monitor off and only display the TV when on, etc. With both profiles saved, I assigned them hotkeys; I just chose Ctrl + O and Ctrl + P at random.

Then I opened JoyXOff's settings, went to profiles, then clicked "Edit Bindings" next to Desktop Bindings. LT/RT and LB/RB have no bindings by default when the controller is in it's desktop mode, so I simply set LB and RB to Ctrl + O and Ctrl + P, essentially making it so that I can switch profiles whenever with my controller. After that make sure to enable Monitor Profile Switcher at startup so that you won't have to manually open it every time, and you're pretty much done.

There are still two limitations; first, the issue of having to change your sound device persists. This isn't too bad because you can just use your controller as a mouse to go over to the action centre and swap the audio device, but it is a bit inconvienent still. Second, you won't be able to switch profiles once JoyXOff enters game/full screen mode, so you'll have to exit out of the game yourself before you can switch profiles again. Not a big deal but it is there. But anyway hopefully this helps someone, and now I'm going to sleep.

[Dweeeb]

Bro just output your PC to a TV!

[RadioHades]

Isn't that what Steam's Big Picture mode is for?

[Maypews]

Isn't that what Steam's Big Picture mode is for?

Always gave me problems unfortunately. Mainly that it would never open on my TV by default, it opens on my "main" monitor instead and with no keyboard access there's no good way to move it over. I also tried making my TV the main monitor and then turning it off whenever I'm not using it which worked for a while but then my PC started detecting it even when it was turned off causing all windows to open on the powered off TV for some reason.