Plugable

Two New DisplayLink USB Graphics Adapters

Posted on 02. Dec, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows

Source: DisplayLink

We’re filling out our line of DisplayLink USB graphics adapters with two new products that offer even better pricing, using DisplayLink’s most cost-effective mid-range DL-165 chip.

1) Our new UGA-165 completes our USB to VGA/DVI/HDMI family. There are all identical products other than the DisplayLink chip inside the unit: UGA-2K-A (DL-195 chip), UGA-165 (DL-165 chip), and UGA-125 (DL-125 chip).

2) Our new USB-VGA-165 is our most aggressively priced product, hitting the new price point of $44.95, while still being built on DisplayLink’s mid-range DL-165 chip. We pushed the price point down by supporting VGA connections only (no DVI or HDMI, and no extra converters needed in the box), and with simpler casing and packaging.

Now with this complete line, we’re covering the full line of DisplayLink chips, with options from $45-$65. And we hope to add a higher end option focused on HDMI in the coming months.

If you’re a current owner of one of our other DisplayLink products, you’re going to like these new adapters — same drivers, same performance, same simple setup experience, and new lower price points for connecting even more monitors to your PC!

Here’s a table with more detail to compare the four adapters head-to-head.

DisplayLink and nVidia Driver Compatibility Update

Posted on 15. Nov, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows

[updated 12/3 - DisplayLink has released driver version 5.5 M1 (Dec 3, 2010) which appears to resolve all these outstanding nVidia issues. See details ... ]

nVidia’s latest Win7/Vista drivers (October 18, 2010 and later) conflict with existing DisplayLink drivers (version 5.5 Sept 29th and earlier), causing video playback and some 3D applications to not function. These problems apply to all DisplayLink-based USB graphics products, including ours.

DisplayLink is working to fix the conflicts. They’re trying to roll out updated drivers as quickly as possible, but have some work to do yet.

On Nov 15 they made available a maintenance release of the older DisplayLink driver version 5.4, called “5.4 M1″, which resolves some of the conflict, but not enough to make the solution workable.

Our recommended solution for now is to use the latest DisplayLink drivers, and stay on or move back to nVidia drivers version 258 or earlier. For Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit, you can find the nVidia drivers here. For 64-bit, find them here. These drivers do not have any of these these 3D & video playback conflicts.

Our apologies to users affected by these conflicting drivers. We hope this information helps. Feel free to email support@plugable.com or visit http://plugable.com/support/ and post a question if you have any remaining problems. Again, thank you!

[updated 11/23]

How Well Does the New MacBook Air Work with DisplayLink?

Posted on 20. Oct, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in UGA-2K-A

DisplayLink USB 2.0 graphics adapters are the easiest way to get multiple monitors attached to a laptop, especially one with limited connectivity. USB is ubiquitous, and you can always add an inexpensive USB hub to get more ports.

But compatibility with the Mac has been hit-and-miss. Mac OS has no special support for USB graphics – so DisplayLink’s drivers have to do quite a bit of work to integrate with the OS. And Apple’s new OS updates and platforms have sometimes broken the drivers, requiring another update from DisplayLink to set things right.

In particular, in the 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pro models introduced in 2010, Apple added hybrid switching Intel/nVidia graphics for power management purposes. The OS switches between them depending on whether lower power (Intel) or higher 3D performance (nVidia GeForce GT 330M) is called for. Unfortunately, that switching conflicts with USB graphics in Mac OS X in significant ways that DisplayLink has been unable to solve. As a workaround, users with these MacBooks can turn off graphics switching in the control panel.

On the bright side, with the 13″ MacBook Pro, Apple moved entirely to using nVidia’s latest low-power chipset, the GeForce 320M, which both is 1) an all-in-one non-switching solution and 2) makes use of integrated memory, which is a good match for USB graphics. This MacBook Pro doesn’t have the compatibility problems of the 15″ and 17″ versions.

The new MacBook Air, announced today, now too is potentially a great match for USB graphics – a small and light notebook for travel, but with the ability to connect many devices and up to 4 independent displays (one USB graphics adapter per display), all via inexpensive USB 2.0 hubs to expand beyond the two built-in ports.

But what about compatibility?

Fortunately, Apple has announced that the new MacBook Air uses the same nVidia GeForce 320M graphics solution as the MacBook Pro 13″ model, so the compatibility story should be the same. Just make sure to use DisplayLink’s latest 1.6 beta 3 drivers or newer, for full 64-bit OS support and the latest fixes.

This is based solely on the specs for now – hopefully we’ll get a newly minted Macbook Air owner to post here with their experiences. And again, for Mac OS X these are beta drivers for now, so only somewhat adventurous users should jump in to experience any of this multi-monitor madness.