UGA-2K-A support for MacBook Pro 2010 with nVidia/Intel gaphics

Discontinued Products UGA-2K-A
1

Hi,

You mention on the Amazon website that the UGA-2K-A will not work with a MacBook Pro 2010 with nVidia/Intel switchable graphics.
Why is that?

Amazon Plugable UGA-2K-A

Thanks, Sean.

2

Hi Sean,

Thanks for asking the question.

Unfortunately, the 2010 MBPs with switchable Intel/nVidia graphics have not been compatible with USB attached displays. The root cause is software changes made to support switchable graphics. These problems do not affect the rest of the Mac lineup.

These problems may eventually get resolved by future software updates from Apple and/or DisplayLink, but for we do not recommend buying our product for use with 2010 MacBook pros because of it, sorry.

For more detail, here are some of the problems (and a few partial workarounds like turning off the graphics switching feature in OS X):
http://displaylink.org/forum/showthre…
http://displaylink.org/forum/showthre…

And here are two updates from Apple which have begun fixing some portion of the problems (but still not complete):

Apple EFI BIOS update 1.9: http://displaylink.org/forum/showthre…
August 17, 2010 Snow Leopard Graphics Update: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4286

When/if a full set of fixes come from Apple and DisplayLink, we’ll update all our Plugable listings to reflect the better situation.

Sorry, and thanks again for your question!
Bernie

3

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply!

I mostly use my MBP plugged into external displays (hopefully 3).
So, if I’m willing to disable auto-graphics switching and make sure the primary display is the MBP it should work?

Regards, Sean.

4

You’d need to be willing to be a bit of a guinea pig for Apple and DisplayLink. I can’t recommend you do so (and wouldn’t recommend it for most users).

That said, it seems like the combination of disabling switching graphics + the August Snow Leopard Graphics update from Apple is making progress. If you do go ahead, feel free to report back with any tips you have for others!

5

Thanks. I need to setup at least a third display (2nd external), so I’ll decide soon what to do.

6

Hello Bernie, I have the same question (only it’s been 8 months since your original reply).

I have a MacBook Pro 15’ (mid 2010), i use Apple’s DP-2-DVI connector to add an external monitor, now i’m interested in yet another.

UGA-2K-A seems like a perfect solution and i wonder if all of the issues had been resolved (i’m running the latest OS X) so:

Can i buy it peacefully - resting assured it would work properly? (extending my display to my Mac’s + 2 external monitors at their highest resolution)

(MacBook Pro 15’ OS X 10.6.7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M)

Thanks in advance.

Nadav

7

Hey Bernie,
Thanks for the quick reply, I’m buying it :wink:

Would be great if any Lion issues (for better or worse) would be posted here.

Nadav

8

Hi Nadav,

Great - it’d be wonderful for you to report back here with your experiences.

And we’ll definitely track Lion & DisplayLink closely and post about it.

Thanks again!
Bernie

9

Have there been any updates since the release of DisplayLink 1.6 beta 4 Mac drivers and Lion?

10

Hi!
Thanks for posting!

The latest update has been the 1.7 Beta 3 drivers that add Lion support.

Please also have a look at this thread for a longer discussion on those drivers.

Regards,
Lampros

11

Is this ready for Mac OSX Lion by now?

What is the support like for the Macbook pro 2011 13"?

and

Is it laggy with videos and all or is it as smooth as plugging in a monitor into the TB port (DP port)?

12

Hi Nadav,

Thanks for prompting for an update! Since the release of DisplayLink’s 1.6 beta 3 drivers last fall, all major issues that we’re aware of with switchable graphics on Mac have been solved. And the recently released DisplayLink 1.6 beta 4 Mac drivers make more progress in other areas.

The biggest compatibility limitation we’re currently tracking is that the next Mac OS X release (“Lion” 10.7) breaks existing USB graphics drivers, and DisplayLink hasn’t yet released an update which is Lion compatible. Not a big deal yet, since Lion is not released and DisplayLink has time for that work, but still an issue to track.

And it’s always important to set performance expectations - USB graphics rely on the CPU for rendering and compression, so at high resolutions people tend to be happy with the web & app performance, but not motion video, etc.

Hope that helps, and thanks again for the prompt for an update!

Bernie