With just two weeks to go until the release of the Xbox Series X, a lot of gamers will be trying to make sure everything is ready to go so they can start playing the new console right away.
The last thing they need is a bug, especially one that stops the games being shown on screen. Because there’s nothing worse than having a system and not being able to use it because of the HDMI port.
- Xbox Series X vs PS5: Which next-gen console is best?
- Nvidia RTX 3080 is coming to laptops — here's the proof
- Plus: Xbox Series S has some major drawbacks — what to know
HDMI is the real problem here, according to Heise Online. It turns out a number of Panasonic HMDI 2.1 chipsets have been affected by a bug that inhibits 4K/120 fps content and 8K/60 fps content. Considering one of the selling points of the Xbox Series X is playing in 4K/120 fps, that’s a big problem.
Thankfully the issue only affects certain AV receivers, specifically the latest HDMI 2.1 compatible models from Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha. That prevents content from certain graphics cards, including the NVIDIA RTX 3000-series and the Xbox Series X, from passing through.
The issue itself causes a blank screen, which makes everything a little bit useless, and dampens what should have been a major selling point for these new HDMI2.1 receivers. Thankfully it’s not the console or the graphics cards that have the issue.
If you do have one of these receivers, and don’t want to (or can’t) return it, there are some workarounds (via Audioholics). The most obvious is to just plug your console directly into the display, while feeding audio back into the AV receiver via HDMI. That uses the display’s ARC/eARC functionality to feed audio back to the AVR, allowing users to decode native audio from the source. Just make sure to enable the display’s CEC/ArC option, as well as the AVR’s HDMI control or ARC option.
The other is to restrict your console’s output to 4K/60 fps until a permanent solution is found. That’s the default out of the box, so unless you try to change it up you shouldn’t notice the issue. Neither workaround is particularly ideal, but they’re still better than not being able to play at all.
Affected receivers include the Marantz SR range (SR5015, SR6015, SR7015 and SR8015), Denon X-series range (AVR-X2700H, AVC-X3700H, AVC-X4700H, AVC-X6700H) and Yamaha RX-V4A and RX-V6A. If you have one of these, you may well be in for a surprise when your Xbox arrives, so make sure to bear this news in mind.
Thankfully the PS5 doesn’t seem to be affected by this bug, so if you have both an affected receiver and Sony’s latest console on the way, you should be alright. But it’s worth remembering the issue, just in case. Especially if you’re planning on getting a machine with a new Nvidia graphics card.
