Windows Driver Foundation taking 35% of CPU

Is it normal for the Windows Driver Foundation process to take 35% of the CPU when using your USB-C 4K docking station (UD-ULTC4K) while running 2 external 4K displays in Windows 10? I have a Dell XPS 13 9360 which is a fairly powerful laptop but it slows to a crawl when I use the dock now. It seemed to work better before upgrading Windows 10 10.0.17134.48 last week from the previous version of Windows 10.

Hello and thanks for posting!

The two DisplayPort outputs of our UD-ULTC4K dock are driven by a DisplayLink DL-6950 chip which is a ‘virtual’ graphics adapter that depends on your system’s CPU and internal physical graphics adapter to drive the displays. As a result the amount of CPU used can vary based on the system’s specifications and the type of content being shown (i.e. static images will use less CPU and video), and two 4K displays can require substantial resources.

That said, DisplayLink (the separate company that makes the chip inside the dock and develops the drivers) have released a newer version of their driver that when used with a DL-6950 chip, a modern system and with making a small change in the Windows registry can help lower CPU usage and they are looking for feedback on its performance. Should you wish to try this new driver, the new version (8.5 M0) is available to download here -> http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/…

DisplayLink has more details about the driver and how to enable the ‘Alternative Encoder’ feature here -> https://displaylink.org/forum/showthr… (don’t download the driver via the link in the forum post, it is an older beta version) and also how to provide them feedback directly.

Thank you,

Bob
Plugable Technologies
www.plugable.com/support