Disabling HDCP on NVIDIA Card = better monitor performance

[hypercybermegatron]

AMD cards have a setting to toggle this but NVIDIA cards don't.

Even PS4 and 5 has setting to disable this.

I've disabled this using Regedit and the biggest difference for me the time it takes for my monitor to respond to PC when changing input source, previously there was a noticeable delay of a few seconds, but now since disabling HDCP in Registry the display shows immediately.

There may be input lag benefits but I've not tested this yet.

Here's how I did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgGKR10zQo&t=6s

You don't need to make a reg key from scratch to do this, easier to get "Class GUID" from Device Manager> NVIDIA Card Properties> Details> "Class GUID" and then in Regedit go to "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{"Class GUID of your card"}\0000] and add the following DWORD: "RMHdcpKeyglobZero", and then set this to 0 (hex).

Reboot machine, and then go to NVIDIA control panel to check HDCP status. If it's saying "This display does not support HDCP as configured", then success.

[Azza ☠]

HDCP stands for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection.

It's used for when you are playing Blu-Ray movies, copy-right music DVDs, cable boxes and streaming devices. It's a feature which protects digital content from illegal copying.

For example: HDCP is required to stream Netflix from a device connected to your TV. Same deal with the Roku streaming service, etc.

So if you can't play your movies, music or stream content anymore, just understand that might be why. Disabling HDCP shouldn't really affect performance that much either? I guess it could increase input lag very slightly due to it's encrypting the signal across. It's not something I would notice on my 240Hz OLED with 0.03 ms response time, so I can't test it myself.

[hypercybermegatron]

Originally posted by Azza ☠:

HDCP stands for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection.

It's used for when you are playing Blu-Ray movies, copy-right music DVDs, cable boxes and streaming devices. It's a feature which protects digital content from illegal copying.

For example: HDCP is required to stream Netflix from a device connected to your TV. Same deal with the Roku streaming service, etc.

So if you can't play your movies, music or stream content anymore, just understand that might be why. Disabling HDCP shouldn't really affect performance that much either? I guess it could increase input lag very slightly due to it's encrypting the signal across. It's not something I would notice on my 240Hz OLED with 0.03 ms response time, so I can't test it myself.

Some people claim disabling HDCP noticeably improves input lag, but I've not yet been able to see this for myself.

What I can say is that it definitely makes my monitor a lot more responsive when doing things like rebooting or source selecting. Prior to disabling HDCP my screen was always black for ages when detecting active input, but now after disabling it the screen shows immediately. For that alone it's worth me disabling it.

Since doing this I've not encountered one issue with playing media content. Only on PS4, if you disable this you can't watch YouTube or Netflix but not the case on PC at least for YouTube.