Connecting two monitors to my 2020 macbook pro m1?

Is it possible to connect two monitors to my 2020 13" Macbook pro M1?

Posted on Jun 30, 2023 3:52 PM

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Posted on Jun 30, 2023 4:29 PM

That computer only supports a single external display.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications


There are workarounds such as DisplayLink-equipped docks (and matching DisplayLink software for your Mac) that might allow you to add more displays. These don't add hardware video outputs to your Mac – the updates are software-driven, and you might experience lags or low refresh rates (especially if you try to drive a "wall" of monitors this way, as one guy did).


Synaptics is the company behind DisplayLink. They don't sell docks themselves (as far as I know), but make their money by selling DisplayLink chip sets and licensing DisplayLink to companies who do. The Synaptics site is also where you find the matching software you need to install on a Mac or PC.

https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics

https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/1932214-displaylink-manager-app-for-macos-introduction-in

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Question marked as Best reply

Jun 30, 2023 4:29 PM in response to I am the Count

That computer only supports a single external display.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications


There are workarounds such as DisplayLink-equipped docks (and matching DisplayLink software for your Mac) that might allow you to add more displays. These don't add hardware video outputs to your Mac – the updates are software-driven, and you might experience lags or low refresh rates (especially if you try to drive a "wall" of monitors this way, as one guy did).


Synaptics is the company behind DisplayLink. They don't sell docks themselves (as far as I know), but make their money by selling DisplayLink chip sets and licensing DisplayLink to companies who do. The Synaptics site is also where you find the matching software you need to install on a Mac or PC.

https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics

https://support.displaylink.com/knowledgebase/articles/1932214-displaylink-manager-app-for-macos-introduction-in

Jun 30, 2023 6:31 PM in response to I am the Count

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 can suffer from lagging. Just adding the DisplayLink Driver is not adequate to get a picture -- you need a DisplayLink "stunt-box" or a Dock that includes DisplayLink chips.


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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 (as one user put it) “without too many dropped frames".


The Apple standard for its built-in hardware-accelerated displays, makes them suitable for full-motion video for production/display of cinema-quality video with NO dropped frames, and NO dropouts or partial-blank scan lines due to memory under-runs or other issues. This requires a hardware rasterizer/display-generator for each fully-accelerated display.


If you are only doing program listing and stock quotes and other slow to change data, there are some other solutions, but they require you to make some strong compromises.

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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 disabled 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.

Connecting two monitors to my 2020 macbook pro m1?

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