MacBook Pro 13" M1 Dual Monitors using Dell D6000

I have a D6000 that i just tried with a M1 Mac Mini. What a pain. First of all, everything seems to be working on the dock just fine except the displays. I already went to Display Links website and downloaded the 1.3 Update that has Native M1 support. I thought it should be plug and play then. But no. You have to launch the software it installs first and add a Screen Recording permission (which is how Display Link works, or at least how it works in Big Sur). Then theres a utility that runs in the Menu Bar. You can open that and say to Run At Login. But theres a catch. It doesn't work at Login which for a Mac Mini is a problem, for you might not be depending on your use case. Either-way they have a link to install the Login Screen Extension right there in the utility. That works. The only other issue i have is if i shut the computer down. Turn it back on. I have to reseat the cable to get it to negotiate the Displays again. I suspect this kind of problem might not immediately present itself to laptop people or people that never turn their computers off.

Honestly the only reason i'm using the D6000 right now is cause i brought the M1 to work to finish setting it up. Once you get it setup it works just like my 2017 15" MBP does with Display Link and the D6000. Its mostly for Office work stuff.

Sorry for the rant, but yes, the D6000 works with M1.

I was initially hogging both USB-C ports on my M1 MBP (one for charging and one for a single external display) until I discovered that my Dell D6000 dock supports DisplayLink. Right now, everything works fine EXCEPT for DRM issues. I can't play Netflix whenever it detects I have an external display connected (regardless if the external display is directly connected via USC-C or through the dock via DisplayLink). The video actually plays fine because I can see subtitles including sound, but I only get a black screen.

This only happens in Safari. I can play Netflix videos just fine in Chrome, with or without an external display connected.

This would have been fine, but Chrome on MacOS doesn't support video qualities over 1080p, but Safari does. I also prefer using Safari over Chrome if I can help it. Issue also persists in other websites like Udemy, etc. Hopefully Apple fixes this DRM issue soon. It's been a huge pain in the ***.

I’d you only plan to use one external monitor with an M1 laptop, don’t buy a DisplayLink Dock. Buy a Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C dock for it - that is if you need a dock.

The monitor outputs on a DisplayLink dock use the DisplayLink technology, which leverages the CPU cycles on the computer instead of leveraging the GPU. DisplayLink image quality will always be inferior to the GPU image quality.

However, If you need to use more than one external display on an M1 MacBook Air /MacBook Pro, then you should buy a DisplayLink dock because that’s the only way to have more than one external display on an M1 MacBook Pro/ MacBook Air. I would also recommend to connect your primary monitor directly into one of the M1 Mac’s USB4/TB3 ports to leverage the M1’s GPU for sending image to the primary external display. Then connect your DiplayLink dock into the M1 Mac’s other USB4/TB3 port and connect your secondary, tertiary, etc. displays to video outputs of the DisplayLink dock.

The Apple-Silicon M1 Macs have one display-generator/rasterizer for the Built-in display, and ONE for an external display, which can be as large as the Apple 6K displays. You can not attach two hardware-accelerated displays.

Actually the Displaylink performance on an M1 MacBook Pro is very good and using a dock such as the HP Universal USB-C G2 dock (5TW13UT), I have 2 external 27" Acer Predator monitors at 1440P plus the built in display active in extended desktop mode. The fast performance might be due to the unified memory architecture and will probably get better since the displaylink drivers haven't been optimized for the M1 chip yet (the are coded for Intel arch as far as I know). There are currently 3 issues though:

1). Clamshell mode needs to implemented, currently its all displays active or none while using Displaylink in extended desktop mode

2). HDCP/DRM needs to be implemented. While displaylink app is active, video from the Apple TV app only shows as a black screen. This happens on all displays while displaylink is active

3). unlock with Apple Watch does not currently work, since the OS thinks the screen is being recorded.

In all it's a good solution for an M1 but obviously it needs refinement/improvement. When I say good, I mean good for standard productivity, non DRM movie watching, etc. Obviously, gaming of any sort is a different beast and not sure how that would perform with this type of setup but suspect it would have issues with gaming.

Tried out the latest driver ver 1.2.0 Build 55.125. They work great. Looks like clamshell mode is now implemented!

DRM movie/video playback still has to be implemented. Unlock with Apple Watch still has to be implemented as well.

I copied this setup (Dell D6000) with my M1 MacBook Pro and 2 HP Z27 4K monitors and it works great with both monitors running at 3840x 2160 , 60 Hz. There’s also no noticeable impact to the M1s performance.

Has anyone found any work around to the HDCP video content turning into a black screen? I can’t see any content from Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime when it’s plugged into the dock.

No problems here.

I have my M1 mac plugged into my 4k Dell U3219Q via Thunderbolt (so driven by the M1 graphics) and I then have the Dell D6000 plugged into the U3219Q (Via USB3). The D6000 then drives my 1080P Dell U2414H using DisplayLink over a displayport cable.

Amazon video plays fine on both.

Waiting for the updated drivers to use my U2414H in portrait. For anyone reading don't try to change rotation or it will cause serious system stability issues and you can't get around it without changing the ports your cable is plugged into between the D6000 and your displaylink display.

Thanks for your reply. I have done some digging and I found a macrumors thread where someone has confirmed that the D6000 works to support a total of two external displays on their M1 macbook. This was before the new drivers came out, so hopefully the performance will be better too.

Link to thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-monitor-support.2266844/page-10

DisplayLink technology creates a "fake" display buffer in RAM, sends the data out over a slower interface to a stunt box with DisplayLink custom chips that put that data back onto a "legacy" interface. It is not a true "accelerated" display, and it suffers from lagging.

It may be acceptable for a second display showing slow-to-change data such as computer program listings, stock quotes, or spreadsheets, but NOT for full motion Video, not for Video editing, and absolutely not for gaming. Mouse-tracking on that display can lag, and can make you feel queasy.

In a pinch, it may even play Internet videos without (as one user put it) "too many dropped frames".

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It is really nice to know that you can use a DisplayLink display if you MUST have an additional display for some of the types of data I mentioned. But that is NOT the same as the computer supporting a second, built-in, Hardware-accelerated display.

These displays depend on DisplayLink software, and are at the whim of Apple when they make MacOS changes. There have been cases where MacOS changes completely Borked DisplayLink software, and it took some time for them to recover.

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I think the Big Surprise for a lot of Hub/Dock buyers is that they thought they were getting a "real" display, but actually got a DisplayLink "fake" Display. If you got what you expected in every case, I would not use such pejorative terms to describe DisplayLink.

Agreed, if you have it try it. I should have clarified, it works great for me, but I use it for looking at browsers, spreadsheets, databases, VNC, Remote Desktop, work stuff. I have used video, I don't notice any problems or lag, but I don't use it for home theatre. Displaylink will probably be less than optimal for games because of how it work, but if you are using a Mac as your gaming platform, I am not sure the DisplayLink stuff will bother you or interfere too much. For gaming you could also switch back to direct HDMI or DP video and skip the dock.

Yes you can. I am running this setup at home as we speak. Works great. You just have to install the display link drivers.

DisplayLink technology creates a "fake" display buffer in RAM, sends the data out over a slower interface to a stunt box with DisplayLink custom chips that put that data back onto a "legacy" interface. It is not a true "accelerated" display, and it suffers from lagging.

It may be acceptable for a second display showing slow-to-change data such as computer program listings, stock quotes, or spreadsheets, but NOT for full motion Video, and mouse-tracking on that display can lag, and can make you feel queasy.

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It is really nice to know that you can use a DisplayLink display if you MUST have an additional display for some of the types of data I mentioned. But that is NOT the same as the computer supporting a second, built-in, accelerated display.

These displays depend on DisplayLink software, and are at the whim of Apple when they make MacOS changes. There have been cases where MacOS changes completely Borked DisplayLink software, and it took some time for them to recover.

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I think the Big Surprise for a lot of Hub/Dock buyers is that they thought they were getting a "real" display, but actually got a DisplayLink "fake" Display. If you got what you expected in every case, I would not use such strong terms to describe DisplayLink.

P/N: 5TW13UT is the HP Displaylink Universal USB-C G2 dock I am using with my M1 Macbook Pro and yes it does work. I haven't had a chance to try out the December release of the Displaylink drivers yet to answer one of the previous posts. Links to the dock info and compatibility below:

https://www.displaylink.com/products/find?res=3840x2160&num=2&br=5&vid_dp=1&usbc=1

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-usb-c-a-universal-dock-g2

With the release of Big Sur 11.3 on April 20, 2021, Apple fixed all the issues with DP1.4 monitors.

So, at this point using DisplayLink docks for connecting to DP1.4 monitors to alleviate M1 issues with DP1.4 monitors is no longer required. One will still have to use a DisplayLink dock if more than one external monitor is required with an M1 MacBook Air/ MacBook Pro.