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How to Connect Your PS4 to Any Computer Monitor

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You can easily connect the PS4 or PS4 Pro to a computer monitor so that you can game wherever you are. In most cases you already have what you need to use the PS4 with a monitor, but you may need to buy an adapter depending how old the monitor is.

This is a great way to play PS4 games at your desk, which may be a better setting for a FPS (First Person Shooter) that you want to be closer to the screen for.

You can also set up a second monitor at your desk to quickly switch to gaming when you want to play after a long study session or finishing a task for work. If you live your life in front of a monitor at a desk, this might be the best solution for you.

Depending on the type of monitor that you have, connecting a PS4 to one isn’t as straightforward as a regular television.

Here’s a look at what you need to connect your PS4 to a monitor, and how you can use it to game wherever there is a monitor handy. There are many different kinds of monitors and monitor connections, so you may need to buy an accessory or adapter to make this work.

For the most part, it comes down to having just a few accessories to choose from that allow you to connect your PS4 to any computer monitor.

Before You Begin

First, before you do anything, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the connections of your PS4 and your computer monitor. Make a note of the type of connections that the PS4 uses, as well as the connections available on your computer monitor.

PS4 connections

As for video and audio connections, the PS4 has an HDMI port and an audio optical port. While HDMI can carry both video and audio, most computer monitors don’t have built-in speakers, which means you’ll need an external audio source if you want sound, or you will want to plug headphones into your PS4 controller.

Cheaper or older computer monitors don’t have HDMI, but rather DVI or VGA. This is important to note, as you’ll need an adapter to turn the HDMI port on your PS4 into one of the other video ports on your monitor.

Connecting Your PS4

The best case scenario is if your computer monitor has an HDMI port and built-in speakers. This is what you will find for most newer monitors, and especially for gaming monitors. If this is the case, you just need an HDMI cable. You probably have one, but if not you can get a good on on Amazon for $6.99. Plug one end of the cable into your PS4 and the other end into your computer monitor and start playing.

Your computer monitor may be able to play PS4 audio through its built-in speakers with the HDMI cable, but it’s not always possible. Check reviews online to see if your monitor supports this. Odds are good you will want to use headphones or better speakers, so this isn’t a dealbreaker if it doesn’t work.

If your monitor doesn’t have an HDMI port you will need an adapter. This will let you plug the PS4 or PS4 Pro into a DVI port.

Buy an HDMI-to-DVI adapter cable to plug your PS4 into your computer monitor with DVI connectivity.

If your monitor only has a VGA port, that means it’s probably really old and could use an upgrade anyway. You’ll see significant image quality degradation if you use VGA. You’re better off buying a new monitor like one from Monoprice or a Monitor deal on Amazon.

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 11.27.18 AM

In any case, audio is a little more complicated than video when connecting your PS4 to a computer monitor, because the PS4 only supports digital/optical audio out. However, there are a few ways to handle the situation, most of which require a converter box to convert the digital/optical audio to a connection that you can plug into regular speakers.

If your monitor doesn’t have built-in speakers, you’ll need an external audio source of some kind, whether it’s just a regular pair of computer speakers or even a stereo system that you can use. You’ll be plugging your PS4’s audio directly into these speakers.

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However, seeing as how there are multiple ways to connect audio to your speakers based on what kind of speakers you have, we’ll run down some common situations and what type of tools you’ll need for each.

If your speakers connect using a 3.5mm headphone jack, then you’ll need a few items: a digital optical TOSLINK audio cable, a digital optical-to-RCA converter, and an RCA-to-3.5mm adapter cable. Once you have these, plug one end of the TOSLINK cable into the optical audio port on your PS4 and the other end into the converter. Next, plug the RCA adapter cable’s red and white ends into the converter, and then plug the 3.5mm male connector into your speakers.

Screen Shot 2014-08-14 at 11.28.20 AM copy

If your external speakers connect using RCA red and white input jacks, you’ll need the digital optical TOSLINK audio cable, the digital optical-to-RCA converter, and an RCA cable. Plug all of this in like you would in the previous method, but you’ll have the red and white RCA plugs at the other end, which you then plug into your speaker system in order to get PS4 audio.

If you simply just want to use headphones, that’s probably a better option anyway, since you won’t need all of the convertor equipment and you can just plug them directly into the headphone jack on the PS4’s DualShock 4 controller. From there, you’ll want to press and hold the PS button and then change All Audio to headset.

It’s important to note that if you’re playing your PS4’s audio through the digital optical output, you’ll need to change audio settings on your PS4 in the Settings menu. From there, select Sound Settings, and then under Audio Output Settings select the type of connection you have set up for audio (digital optical audio).

However, perhaps an easier way to change this setting is to select Audio Multi-output under the Sound Settings menu, which will send audio to all connections regardless of what’s plugged in.

Additional coverage by Craig Lloyd

2 Reasons to Wait for the PS5 & 4 Reasons To Buy a PS4 Pro

Wait for The New PS5 Features

The PlayStation 5 supports up to 8K gaming with 3D Audio and Ray Tracing. Load times are also almost non-existent thanks to a standard SSD and powerful CPU and GPU combo. Here are the PS5 specs. 

  • 8 core AMD Ryzen based on 7nm Zen 2
  • Radeon Navi Based 
  • Raytracing
  • 3D Audio
  • Supports 8K Resolution
  • New PlayStation 5 Controller
  • Backwards Compatible (PS4)
  • Supports Physical Media
  • SSD

It's also nice to see PS4 backwards compatibility and future-proofing with 8K support. 

Last update on 2024-03-11. This post may contain affiliate links. Click here to read our disclosure policy for more details. Images via Amazon API

36 Comments

36 Comments

  1. Evu Eva

    08/14/2014 at 1:01 pm

    NFL Now app launches on Apple TV, iPhone & iPad with personalized video stream https://sportslivefeed.blogspot.com/2014/07/nfl-regular-season-2014-watch-nfl.html

  2. Jeff

    11/07/2014 at 12:24 pm

    stupid article. you can connect the 3.5 mm jack into the controller as if it was a headset and change the audio settings. thanks for wasting my time and money

    • J

      11/12/2014 at 11:42 am

      It says that at the bottom of the article. Also, if you didn’t know you could do that, it means you didn’t read the manual. Good job.

    • Bob

      01/02/2016 at 11:36 am

      Stupid reader. The article tell you this, along with your systems user manual. You are the only person to thank for wasting your time/money, perhaps actually reading the whole article before rushing out to buy things would be a better idea.

    • anonymous hacker

      02/06/2016 at 3:52 am

      what 3.5mm jack? does it come wit the ps4

    • Jeff Stupid Reader

      06/13/2017 at 8:43 am

      I don’t know why you said that thing, but actually this article helps me alot right from starting reading it at first to the last.

      At first also you’re searching for some answers like this. So, don’t give some stupid comments about it.

  3. Matthew Rosborough

    12/29/2014 at 5:13 pm

    thanks a bunch for this post. it was exactly what i needed

  4. Alexander

    04/04/2015 at 8:45 pm

    I’m planning to buy ps4 and I have computer on my house. The thing is my computer is sony vaio tap 21 built in all-in-one but It hase HDMI and internal speakers. Do you think I can connect ps4 to it?.. I just want to make sure that I can connect my ps4 before I buy it. I might waste my money..

  5. Bobby

    05/20/2015 at 10:42 am

    I have a question. I hooked up my ps4 to my projector via a VGA to hdmi converter and can’t get a picture or sound. All I get is a popping noise thru the receiver I have the sound hooked to. My xbox 360 works great with the setup. Is there some sort of interference between the sound and video? Could I turn the sound completely off on the ps4 and solve the problem that way? Or does the ps4 deliver hdmi in some way that is different than the xbox 360?

    • Keon

      06/20/2015 at 4:33 pm

      Im having the same problem. If you find a solution please let me know.. My ps3 hooks up fine but my ps4 wont even get a picture. Is it too powerful?

      • Bobby

        06/20/2015 at 5:10 pm

        Never did figure it out. Only thing I can think of is 1: the VGA doesn’t down convert the hdmi correctly or 2: the VGA doesn’t allow for something called hdcp (I think that’s right) it’s a form of copyright protection that high def machines use. Either way I hooked it up to a EUG x760 projector and even then had a strange popping noise and interference randomly at the bottom of the screen. Switched the ps4 to hdmi 1080p and problem solved. Seems some projectors can’t shoot interlaced correctly. The EUG x760 is a Very affordable Chinese projector. But it gives 2500 lumens and 6000:1 contrast ratio for about $275 plus 50,000 hour lamp life. Not great for PCs but perfect video for movies. Add a sound bar and it’s great

  6. Ariyan Ali

    07/19/2015 at 11:43 pm

    I did the same procedure but couldn’t connect my ps4 to a lcd monitor. I have changed 3 lcd monitor .

  7. Simmerplayer27

    08/27/2015 at 8:05 pm

    I stream on Twitch, and I want to plug my PS4 into my computer so I can play the games on PC plus stream. All my PC sound comes through my headset/mic combo, although I do have regular speakers also attached to my PC. So would just connecting through an HDMI cable be all I need to make this work? Because this would be so much easier than buying a capture card

  8. OhhDB

    08/29/2015 at 10:08 pm

    “signal out of range change settings to 1600×900 – 60 Hz”

    • John

      12/31/2015 at 5:19 pm

      I have the exact same problem and I can’t figure it out.

  9. Ryan

    10/26/2015 at 1:37 am

    My monitor has an audio out port which I believe is 3.5 mm. If I connect my ps4 to the monitor via HDMI and then connect a pair of computer speakers to the audio out port, will it work? I would assume yes but I wasn’t sure.

  10. dave

    01/18/2016 at 8:18 am

    I have a modern all in one computer so I bought a hdmi cable to link my ps4 to the monitor but when I switch the ps4 on there’s nothing on the monitor screen…..could the hdmi port on the monitor just be for sending a signal out and won’t receive 1 in…Thanks in advance for your help

    • Deonte

      09/14/2016 at 5:39 pm

      Did you figure out the problem because Im having the same problem. Thanks

  11. Duncan

    03/10/2016 at 4:06 am

    I am having some problems connecting Hdmi to dvi. Safe mode does not display when I press and hold and hear the two beeps. Ps4 works monitor works and supports those resolutions. Does anybody know why there is no dispkay?? I should be able to use my ps4 on my monitor I have for years with my xbox why not now…with ps4??

  12. Travis Carrier

    05/16/2016 at 8:19 pm

    Ps4 does not support 3rd party converters. It only works hdmi-hdmi :/

    • ButtCheaks

      08/18/2016 at 3:34 pm

      that’s only for controllers and head sets

  13. Cosi

    07/03/2016 at 1:50 pm

    My monitor has a reaction time of 10ms, if I use this cable does it affect the reaction time?

  14. Aleksander Møller

    08/30/2016 at 9:30 am

    i get an out of range error. help?

  15. faggot

    10/10/2016 at 12:48 pm

    but what do i do after i plug in the HDMI cord

  16. online offshore bank

    12/26/2016 at 8:48 am

    Hi there, for all time i used to check weblog posts here early in the daylight, because i love to find out more and more.

  17. Random Person

    12/26/2016 at 7:13 pm

    This might sound stupid, but I connected the PS4 slim via HDMI and I have connected a headset. The problem is, where do I go to see the PS4 screen?

    • Random Person

      12/26/2016 at 7:15 pm

      I connected it to a laptop running Windows 7 if that helps with your answer.

  18. Alex

    12/30/2016 at 12:01 pm

    We have a Dell monitor that we needed to get a dvi to hdmi adaptor for and we plugged everything in correctly but the issue said on the screen stated “optimum resolution 1080×1024”
    We aren’t sure how to bypass this

  19. Joshua

    03/16/2017 at 8:12 pm

    I don’t have a dvi monitor so what about vga

  20. Hello

    05/23/2017 at 7:18 am

    I gotta comment digital out of range 33.7 khz /30hz

  21. Billy

    06/04/2017 at 1:51 pm

    Do you need a computer for this to work?

  22. Anns

    07/10/2017 at 12:34 am

    I need help i have a dvi-i and vga in my monitor so i bought a dvi convertor with hdmi input so when i plug in my ps4 slim .the monitor does showing the screen but it flickers evry 2 sec ..i can see the home screen of the ps4 but the screen flashes every 2 seconds ….i check with my laptop by connecting to the monitor via the dvi converter and it word perfectly fine ..but only the ps4 screen flashes can someone helppp mee:( and the worse is my ps3 super slim doesnt even show its black screen -_- please help me

  23. Gerald Scartiong

    09/11/2017 at 6:38 am

    Good call, but what’s with sound? Playing on a console with a monitor and headphones suck.
    I think the best solution is to buy a high-end TV and decent soundsystem, for better gaming experience.

  24. Adrian

    11/18/2017 at 3:01 am

    I have an old vga monitor. So i buy hdmi to vga adapter but the monitor just shows no signal. Please help me how to fix it

  25. BebeLaReux

    02/28/2019 at 10:21 pm

    Ok my monitor is all in one but no hdmi port just usb. Can a USB to HDMI adapter work?

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