Displaylink Delivers Mac USB Video Card Driver (Mac mini Owners Rejoice)

March 31st, 2008

Filed under USB Video Capture & USB Video Cards

Displaylink has kept their promise on delivering the Mac-version of the USB video driver exactly two hours after midnight on the due date. (It's actually a pleasant surprise that beta driver would be posted on time as scheduled.) The release allows you to connect up to four Displaylink-powerd video products (eg. Samsung 19" 940UX, IOGear External Video Card) over USB, which may not be exciting for most of us, but probably the only way for Mac mini owners to get a second display running. For now, the driver doesn't give you 2D acceleration nor any form of 3D (specifically OpoenGL) acceleration so you will encounter problems with Keynote presentations and iPhoto slideshows.

We actually just had a chance to test the beta driver, and surprisingly, both performance and stability were decent, to say the least. Displaylink did whine about not having enough support from Apple since MacOS X is a closed system unlike Vista. Keep in mind though this driver is still in beta which is traditionally prone to crashes and sluggishness. DisplayLink even keeps a long list of issues that need to be addressed in the online release note.

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