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Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020

The lack of dedicated DisplayPort ports is fairly disappointing to me since their implementation is just "native DisplayPort output over USB‑C" and it doesn't support MST, so you can only do one displayport signal per port, even with a thunderbolt 4 hub with some bidirectional USB-C <-> Displayport cables.

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USB4 supports DP 1.4a tunneling and DP 2.0 in DP "alternate mode". Agree with you, but I fear dedicated DP ports are dying.

I guess my main point is that, if we're going to move to displayport over USB-C, we (A) need Apple to put out official $100 cables, since I tried some cheap Amazon cables that didn't work and had to purchase some $60 moshi cables that I knew would work[0], and (B) they need a minimum of 5 ports since being limited to 1 peripheral port+3 monitors (2 over DP, one HDMI) on the mini is terrible. I know they want your mouse and keyboard to be bluetooth but no thank you.

0: https://us.moshi.com/products/usb-c-to-displayport-cable?var...

I've had very good luck with the CableMatters USB-C to DisplayPort cables! I've used a couple of them continuously for the last 3 years.

If you're the sort of person who needs 3 monitors on their Mini, I'm sure you can afford a Thunderbolt dock.

Four TB4 ports is plenty for 99% of people.

For your information: AmazonBasics cables are very reliable and reasonably priced. You can get an USB-C to DisplayPort cable from them for around 10 bucks and you should have a lot less trouble with it.

In my experience spending big on video cables is only necessary for large distance and bandwidth requirements (like HDMI at 2160p60 over 20 meters).

Cable Matters cables. I’ve ran them for years across several machines without issues.

They never really took off on laptops to begin with. However most PC GPUs are still majority DP despite USB C being tried as an easy connector for VR headsets and most monitors use a mix of DP/HDMI.

MST wouldn't be supported even if it had a DisplayPort output. Apple explicitly did not support MST pre-M1 as well.

Yes, although that's a MacOS restriction, and MST is already used in MacOS to carry multiple streams to a single high-resolution monitor. And as Asahi Linux keeps getting more usable, I hope it can be a viable alternative, so Apple's hardware can be used without MacOS's arbitrary restrictions.

But it worked if you installed Windows instead. So the hardware supports MST

The Intel hardware supported MST. It's unclear about their ARM hardware (and the suspicion is not supported from people who've looked into it).

This obdurate refusal to support MST is indeed awful (and, actually, a minor one of the few reasons I mainly stopped using Macs).

But it is "just" a software problem, right? So they could come to their senses and change their mind.

It seems insane to me to keep putting DisplayPort ports on computers when we have USB-C, but it also seems insane to ship machines with crippled USB ports that don't support more than one monitor... so I wouldn't be surprised if they fix their OS in this regard.

(Apple being Apple though, the software fix might well "require" an M3 processor....)

Check out DisplayLink. I'm using multiple monitors with M1 macbook air which officially only supports single external display. Works great so far.

I agree with your point though.

I used an M1 Air docked with displaylink for about 8 months. 1. The Displaylink software heats the machine lightly in the background, and it just gets worse with resolution. 2. The Adaptor is unreliable and can do some really wonky stuff around dock and undock due to Apple's locked USB policies. 3. The old series of Adaptors do not support 4K60, so if you plan on using it with a 4K display, you need to pony up on costs.

Assuming we see more ~$1600 sales on the M1 Pro 14 inch, that is easily $300 more computer than a $1299 M2 macbook pro.

Not to mention DisplayLink can be broken by MacOS updates. Tunneling video over USB was a clever hack back in the day, but with USB-C and TB3/USB4 docks, things are much less software-dependent.

DisplayLink is a daily source of frustration for me. If I disconnect my DisplayLink hub, and then plug it back in... I have to open and close my 13" M1 MacBook Pro a few times; restart the DisplayLink software; and sometimes reboot my computer before it will work again. For some reason, Zoom will just _hang_ after all of this. I just keep repeating the above until Zoom works again.

This is my employer provided MacBook Pro. I hate the experience so much that when it's time for a laptop refresh, I'm going to ask for the Windows option if they haven't upgraded their Mac offering to one that supports two monitors.

I love Apple products -- but I never understood how they could release a "Pro" laptop that supported only one external monitor.

Interesting as for me it mostly just works, I wonder if has to do with the dock as much as the software.

That wouldn't work with my desk and screen setup that uses MST. I use devices that do support MST but not displaylink like my Steam deck, or out the box Linux installs.

I'm not sure the downvoting is warranted. For what it's worth, I use display link every day (with an M2 MacBook Air) and it's fine. The refresh rate really suffers when driving two 4k monitors (as well as the built-in panel), but I've found it to be a reasonable workaround.

Of course, it's also helpful to know that others have had worse experiences.

I've had two displaylink docks fail on me. To displaylinks credit they sent me the second dock free after the first one failed.

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