MacBook Pro 13" M1 Dual Monitors using Dell D6000

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.

The standard Apple uses is that display output should be PERFECT cinema quality, i.e, you could use that output for producing/showing major motion pictures at a cinema. ANY dropped frames or ANY partial scan-line dropouts due to underruns are completely unacceptable under that standard.

Under ideal conditions, DisplayLink displays may produce a picture that is pleasing enough for you, but still falls FAR short of what Apple uses as its standard.

i’m not sure what you are adding to the conversation that hasn’t already been said?

if you just need another display for information work and it works... even if it is media, then it’s up to the user to define what is acceptable.

Several users have suggested DisplayLink displays are "fine" without defining what "fine" means.

My post is intended to lay out what Apple considers their standard for graphics performance.

If that is obvious to you, you are very special.

The potential for displaylink to produce lower quality results isn't new information to the thread.

Did you just call yourself special?

Anyway, it's what mum tells me, so it must be true. 😁

@Miguelv13 - what version of the displaylink driver are you using? I'm on 1.2. Perhaps earlier versions don't support HDCP video?

Will the Belkin Thunderbolt mini doc station work or does the doc need to have specified displaylink ports? So far I'm having no luck with the Belkin and thought maybe it was because my second monitor was too old since displaylink is not picking it up. But perhaps I need a displaylink enabled doc station?

I think that what you are saying here is historically true. However, Apple's implementation for driving external displays on the M1 architecture is currently nothing short of dismal. Not only are there endless issues with driving displays reliably, alongside repeated crashes, incompatibilities with DisplayPort 1.4 and intermittent kernel panics, Apple itself has acknowledged unresolved issues and we are still waiting for a formal resolution.

For people within the M1 ecosystem, it is reasonable then to assert that the DisplayLink suite of products may actually be a superior option when compared to the issued faced by using Apple's own implementation.

I, historically, have been extremely critical of DisplayLink due to its noticeably inferior performance, however, as someone who has essentially lost the last two months of productivity due to Apple's disgusting excuse for a "standard for graphics performance" my only two options are to repurchase an Intel MacBook or use a third-party DisplayLink solution.

It is the best solution of a bad range of options, but still a solution.

That’s unfortunate. What setup/configuration are you trying, and not able, to get working?

I went in with my eyes open about having one external display option, but the M1 drives my 4K dell u3219k beautifully and displaylink with a dell d6000 gives me another monitor which I wasn’t expecting. I would usually like to run this other monitor in portrait, perhaps that will be provided in a future update.

so far I have had a month of great productivity with the M1 and will upgrade later in the year when the new one comes out.

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 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.

@mrlhxc What displays are you using with the D6000 and how are they wired?

I have my USB-C display plugged into my macbook and then the D6000 plugged into my USB-C display. The only issue I have is that sometimes if I wake my macbook pro the USB-C display is blank, but all devices attached to it work fine. This is in contrast to the display plugged into the D6000 which works reliably! I have to unplug the USB-C display from my macbook pro to get it working properly again

Question: MB Air M1 natively supports one external display. If I plug Dell D6000 to MB and just a single 4k60 display to the dock, will I need to use DisplayLink?

My scenario is one display on Mac and secondary on external monitor, power, eth port and USB A over single USB-C. Will this be possible?

Thanks

I believe so yes - the dock will not pass through the display to the MB graphics, and so is using software drivers to run the display instead (which relies on display link). Better to get a non-display=link dock.

Thanks Ben_Larson.

From the MacBook Pro Lightning port I have connected a multi-port universal hub which also only has one HDMI port. Right now I only have one display connected to that HDMI port because using a splitter only replicates the same screen on both monitors. I have not bought the suggested hub yet, but noticed there is only one HDMI port, so I assume using a splitter there won't work either. I guess I can use the HDMI port for one monitor and one of the other ports for the other one if I just get an appropriate cable for the second monitor to fit into one of the other ports? (I'm not very technical, as you can probably tell, sorry).

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.