IOGear USB 2.0 External Video Card Review

Now ordinarily when using multiple monitors, one simply needs to plug in a second display into their graphics card or install a second video card into a PCI slot. Unfortunately though, this is not always an option as many times there are no leftover slots available, or for many laptop users there are simply no means of expansion whatsoever.

What's more, some PC manufacturers may void the warranty if the case has been opened, and many users just don't feel comfortable working with a computer's innards. In all of these cases an external card would be a godsend, and thanks to IOGEAR's USB 2.0 External Video Card, we finally have such a solution that can handle all our day-to-day demands.

The IOGear USB Video Card is about the size of a deck of cards.

A 400mA 5DV power port is there in case you've an under-powered USB port.

Like the USB sound cards, modems, and TV tuners before it, the External Video Card adheres to one of the most important principles of USB: ease of installation. Install the software, plug in the card with the second monitor already attached, and watch as your display is instantly given life. The External Video Card is USB bus-powered, although there is a 400mA 5V DC power port in case your computer doesn't provide enough power, but you'll have to provide your own power supply. Plugging the card into a powered USB 2.0 hub would also alleviate the issue.

Office Performance
From the very get-go, it was clear that the USB video card would have some hurdles to overcome due to it's natural handicap of being a USB device. You see, USB 2.0 only offers a theoretical speed of 60MB/s, whereas internal cards connected via PCI, AGP, and PCIe x16 have much higher bandwidth to work with at 133MB/s, 2133MB/s, and 8000MB/s respectively. Additionally, the card only has 8MB of video memory, whereas internal solutions available today typically come in varieties from 32MB to 640MB. Also, DirectDraw and Direct3D acceleration are not supported.

While these hurdles can hamper the External Video Card in many ways, thanks to DisplayLink's optimization and "build from the ground up" standpoint, office users won't encounter any show stoppers with the card. Scrolling through spreadsheets, word documents, emails and more is very fluid, similar to what I'd expect from an internal card. Even browsing the internet, complete with moving flash advertisements and embedded videos such as Youtube or Windows Media Player plugins was handled very smoothly. Lines are crisp, colors are sharp, and there are no issues with jitter or latency.

Resolutions and refresh rates supported by the USB 2.0 External Video Card are dependent upon the connected monitor, with officially supported resolutions including the standard 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 modes, as well as 1280x960 for widescreen monitors. The maximum resolution supported is 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at 75Hz, which is suitable for 17" CRTs and 19" LCD monitors. IOGEAR notes that additional modes may be offered, presumably for widescreen monitors, but they won't be guaranteed. Unfortunately I do not have any widescreen monitors available to test this with.

There are two noticeable differences from a standard dual-head video card when using the USB 2.0 External Video Card in a typical office environment. First, movement of objects that benefit from DirectDraw acceleration can appear more choppy than usual, particularly Explorer windows, pictures in a screensaver, and fast moving objects in Powerpoint. While it doesn't ruin the overall presentation, it does prove to be slightly distracting.

The second difference is when the extra display is put into mirroring mode, where it will do it's best to clone what's on the primary display. There are a few millisecond delays between images depending on how much of the screen is being updated at any given time. For example, the delay for a windowed flash animation is barely visible, while the delay when scrolling through a fullscreen web browser is slightly more apparent.

Because Windows renders what's on the primary display first and then must copy from memory the result over to the second video card, this sluggish mirroring behavior is actually expected and unavoidable. To combat this and also provide better synchronization with audio, one of my contacts at DisplayLink recommends that if you don't plan on using the External Video Card for an extended desktop or presentations, it may help to set it as the primary display and turn off the other monitor (or shut the laptop's screen).

Movie Playback Performance
Video performance on IOGear's USB video card is currently a mixed bag. To start with what doesn't work, OpenGL video streams are simply too choppy to watch and actually bog down the entire system. Windows GDI Video output was non-existent. Thankfully, both of these are rarely encountered by the typical user. The two main video streams we typically run into in Windows are Flash Video and DirectX, the latter of which is used in just about every Windows multimedia player including Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and VLC.

As one would expect, the performance of these two video streams had a lot to do with the resolution the video was being played back at, and what percentage of the screen was actually moving. For example, a full screen video will appear choppier than a windowed video, and fullscreen video in a 16:9 format that doesn't utilize the top or bottom of the screen will play more smoothly than a 4:3 video that does utilize all the pixels on screen.

As such, I heartily recommend that when watching fullscreen videos you drop the resolution to 1024x768 or lower in order to get better frame rates. When viewing videos in windowed mode, the current screen resolution is negligible; it's the window size that counts. Also, don't bother trying to playback videos in mirrored mode, it's too choppy. Either play back videos in extended mode or set the External Video Card as the primary display.

Now unfortunately due to the nature of the hardware, it's impossible for me to give exact frame rate statistics to detail my findings, as the External Video Card does not report back its performance to the PC. Video will be sent as fast as possible to the card, and if it needs to, it will drop frames internally. All frame rate numbers given below are my best estimates to what I see.

Flash Video Performance
Flash video performance was tested by watching episodes of Heroes using NBC.com's Rewind service. In the standard windowed box, video was almost as smooth as it is on my internal GeForce 6800, occasionally dropping perhaps one or two frames per second. When played back in a fullscreen window at 1024x768 with 32-bit color, video dropped down to around 15FPS due to CPU limitations with my 2.25GHz AMD Athlon 64 pegged at 100% utilization.

Heros in window-mode.

Computers running the latest Intel and AMD processors will get better performance out of IOGEAR's USB Video Card, as DisplayLink actually optimizes their drivers for the SSE3 instruction set. You can check if your processor supports SSE3 by running the free CPU-Z program. Indeed, there are noticeable performance gains to be had, as testing the same flash video in fullscreen mode at 1024x768 on my SSE3-compatible 2.0GHz Core Duo laptop yielded much better results. The IOGEAR External Video Card managed to keep up with the show without dropping any frames. CPU utilization stayed around 70-85%.

DirectX Video Performance
DirectX video streams are handled differently than they normally would be on an internal card, in the sense that the DisplayLink drivers actually compress the video stream a second time on top of the compression that already exists in the source video. The end result looks fairly good, but a trained eye will notice the video seems slightly more pixelated, almost as if it's being viewed from behind a screen door. Lines with high contrast will also appear jagged, similar to how video games look at low resolution when anti-aliasing isn't enabled. When viewing from a distance however, these differences can be very hard to notice.

With this compression being utilized, DirectX streams actually appear more fluid-like than Flash Video. For testing purposes, I loaded up my widescreen Fellowship of the Ring DVD on the AMD machine and noticed no drops in frame rates while viewing it in windowed mode. When playing it back in fullscreen mode at 1024x768, the frame rate dropped to around 15-20fps, despite the fact that CPU utilization was only running around 66-83%. Using the more powerful Macbook did yield somewhat better performance with lower CPU utilization, although it could still not hit the full 24 fps, only managing around 22fps or so.

On a 4:3 monitor, widescreen videos playback smoother.

Moving on to DirectX streams with a 4:3 aspect ratio, I loaded up the first season of Reno 911 on my AMD system (512x384, 30FPS source), and was able to hit around 25 frames per second in windowed mode, and about 15fps in 1024x768 fullscreen. Again, the Macbook gave lower CPU utilization numbers, although frame rates were about the same.

One curious thing I noticed on the opposite end of the spectrum is that whenever I downscaled the video in VLC, ie. resizing the window so it appears smaller than normal, the compression would ruin the picture. Colors will become blotchy, streaks will litter the scene and random colors will appear throughout the window. This did not happen when using Windows Media Player.

Gaming Performance
Don't expect the IOGEAR External Video Card to play your favorite games any better than your existing video solution would. In fact, don't expect them to play at all. As stated earlier, Direct3D acceleration is not supported, and OpenGL games like Quake III simply will not run whatsoever. Of course, as long as a monitor on your existing video card is set as the primary display, you can still play video games while the External Video Card is plugged in.

But before you abandon all hope, I will say that there are a handful of games that do actually run on the External Video Card. Unreal Tournament '99 runs around 15-20fps in both DirectX and Software rendering modes at 640x480. And while it can't run in fullscreen mode, the EDuke32 port of Duke Nukem 3D runs at full frame rates without issues. Super Nintendo games run around 45-55 frames per second (out of 60) when using the SNES9X emulator. 2D puzzle games such as Candy Crisis (a Puyo Puyo clone) also run smoothly. Don't forget flash games, either... those will also work like a charm.

What the Future Holds in Store
Thankfully the aforementioned numbers for DirectX video performance aren't set in stone. In fact, they're almost guaranteed to change for the better. Currently the drivers that IOGEAR has for download on their website and are shipping with the USB video card are at version 3.81. However, the latest DisplayLink drivers are actually at version 4.1 and are awaiting approval from IOGEAR's quality assurance team. Unfortunately it's been taking a while for that team to give the green light status, so in the event that IOGEAR doesn't release the drivers themselves by the end of the summer, I have it on good word that they'll be available on DisplayLink's own website.

These new drivers offer incredible performance boosts with DirectX video. While compression is still noticeable if you're looking for it, the screen door effect has been minimized and high contrast lines appear much smoother than they did before. What's more, it's now possible to raise the resolution to 1280x1024 and still maintain the frame rate for widescreen video around 21-24fps. Fullscreen 4:3 also plays considerably better, hitting around 12-20fps at 1280x1024 and about 25fps at 1024x768.

Recap
For general office work, IOGEAR's USB 2.0 External Video Card passes with flying colors. Even at the highest resolution of 1280x1024, windows appeared responsive, sharp, and free of jitter. Video playback, while not perfect, surpasses my expectations in windowed modes and maintains watchable frame rates when playing in fullscreen at a low resolution. When the latest 4.1 drivers are officially released by the end of the summer, video playback will be dramatically improved and even more fluid-like. Throw in some light retro and flash gaming for lunch breaks, and the IOGEAR USB 2.0 External Video card makes a worthwhile and viable asset to your productivity. 3D gamers need not apply.