Don't use HDMI on XP with the 980. Use DVI to DVI or DP to DP.
If you insist on HDMI then IIRC max is 1920x1080 @60hz , anything past that results in the issue you mentioned and I believe a color range issue.
You also won't have working scaling.....
If you want HDMI then you'll need to use an earlier nvidia card.

DosFreak wrote on 2023-02-24, 01:21:

Don't use HDMI on XP with the 980. Use DVI or displayport. If you insist on HDMI then IIRC max is 1920x1080 @60hz , anything pas […]
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Don't use HDMI on XP with the 980. Use DVI or displayport.
If you insist on HDMI then IIRC max is 1920x1080 @60hz , anything past that results in the issue you mentioned and I believe a color issue.
You always won't have working scaling.....
If you want HDMI then you'll need to use an earlier nvidia card.

Thanks for the input I believe your posts about 355.98 driver are what led me to that driver so I appreciate the knowledge. I'm willing to settle for 1920x1080 as my monitor only has one display port and it's occupied by my modern machine. I don't want to have to swap cables each time. All that's available is HDMI any idea how to change the connection type or is that only on older drivers that the 980ti doesn't support?

So the Nvidia drivers have the ability to switch HDMI to DVI mode for those monitors that would otherwise report as a TV likely due to the extra extensions like the ability for the monitor to support audio, so it's a good thing that HDMI reports as DVI otherwise the monitor would show up as a TV. For audio you'll have to use a sound card.

You could use a two or three port displayport switch but everytime I've used them I've had nothing but issues. Every time I'd get it working perfect then randomly out of the blue there would be issues and it always came down to the switch being the issue.

It's possible HDMI may suit your purposes for your newer machine though but if you need gsync\freesync or high refresh rates it may not. IMO, for the Nvidia 900 series on XP a monitor that doesn't support higher refresh rates that XP (video driver) cannot support is preferred since you end up having to use refreshlock anyway (which isn't that big of a deal) but really a dedicated monitor that is within the HBR1 limit that XP supports is ideal.

Ok I appreciate the help.

If I used a displayport to HDMI cable would that let XP detect it as a displayport? That might solve the issue of it not looking for audio.

All my tests were in situations where the Nvidia driver treats an HDMI as HDMI and not HDMI as DVI. (Except where I was able to use an EDID device to treat HDMI as DVI but I can't remember every possible variation. Issue there is the EDID devices mostly flaked out when using converters so could never get reliable results.
The issues and limitations experienced are due to a buggy nvidia driver and not the card, cables or monitors (except in cases where those are a factor).
Example:
You can do displayport to HDMI but it would show as a HDMI connection since it would be an HDMI connection.
You can do HDMI to HDMI to DVI which would show as a DVI connection with scaling (not in your case since you don't have DVI)
You can do DVI to HDMI to HDMI which would show as a HDMI connection with the limitations mentioned above.

If you use a displayport to HDMI cable then it will be detected as HDMI (or in your case due to the nvidia driver possibly DVI) because it would be HDMI or DVI.
DVI doesn't support audio and if it detects it as HDMI you'll have the limitations mentioned above for HDMI due to the buggy nvidia driver.

Is there a reason you want audio from the video card so much? Is this a situation where the only speakers are on the TV? Is there no stereo-in or optical available?

DosFreak wrote on 2023-02-24, 09:29:

Is there a reason you want audio from the video card so much? Is this a situation where the only speakers are on the TV? Is there no stereo-in or optical available?

It's a situation where I'd really like to be able to switch between my 3 desktops by changing inputs on my monitor only. My monitor has no audio in only line out going to my speakers. The only way to use my monitor as I'd like is to have all the audio sources come in to the monitor via displayport or HDMI. My use case is VHS capture I have one XP PC dedicated to capture and one XP PC dedicated to editing. I know it's weird but you have to do it that way.

One is a PC with nothing except what's needed for capture as almost any other driver will break ati aiw capture cards theatre 200 driver. It has conflicts with everything. That PC works beautiful with a vga to HDMI cable that actually integrates a 3.5mm jack into the hdmi.

I put together the PC that has no audio as the fastest XP PC I could make. 980ti, 4960x, Asus rampage iv black edition motherboard, 2tb SSD as for the editing portion the software requires XP but the faster the better for encoding. The PC works great just no audio.

My other rig is completely modern 4090 system for gaming.

These are my use cases. My issue seems to be beyond simply not looking for audio though. I hooked it up DP to DP just to see if the audio would work and it still doesn't. It's recognized as a DP connection and in the Nvidia control panel tree I get the set up digital audio tab. However, I can't connect to Nvidia high definition audio even tho it's listed in device manager. It simply is not a selectable audio device in the sounds tab. Realtek hd audio is my only option and it has no audio same as before.

Can anyone confirm they have ever got a 980ti to output audio to XP through HDMI or Displayport at all? If so what was the driver? I don't really care about maximizing the ultra widescreen or scaling at this point.

Have you tried setting the Nvidia audio as the default playback device?
Have you tried unplugging the monitor and plugging it back in?

Saw this:
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds … bit-xp-thinkpad

(Fix) Fixed an issue that might have no audio output from the DisplayPort after resuming normal operation from standby/sleep/hibernation state

So try newer or older audio drivers.
I don't know why realtek drivers would affect displayport but that's Realtek for ya.
Also if the BIOS has an option to disable realtek try that.
Also some monitors can change the DP version which may fix issues.
You can also try booting into a newer OS on that machine and verify if audio works

Realize that XP with newer hardware you'll have to deal with compromises and it won't be perfect, either live with the imperfect or use hardware (video card, monitor, etc) that is compatible.

DosFreak wrote on 2023-02-24, 18:34:

Have you tried setting the Nvidia audio as the default playback device?

I can't that's the whole problem it exists only in hardware not as a playback device. I've uninstalled every audio driver except the Nvidia one to demonstrate.

Can you confirm your audio works through a Displayport connection on your setup or no? It's possible it's just not a thing they may not have made a working XP audio driver for a 980ti.

Never found a working combo ended up going dvi to vga to HDMI as many vga adapters have a 3.5mm aux jack that integrates to HDMI on the other end. It looks ridiculous but everything works.