software engineering is at the mercy of the hardware emulation for USB-A 3.0 for video, it's drawn primarily through the CPU, and let me tell you, it's slow as molasses in frame-rate refreshing compared to USB C or direct video ports like VGA/HDMI/DVI, in some cases almost feels slower than operating a remote desktop system with high speed internet, which means laggy as hell... with 4K, the performance will generally be pretty horrendous and super laggy on USB 3.0 to 4K video, but it can be done.
issue with some universal adapters, is that the hardware/software must activate the right output module if multiple monitors are connected to the same multi-out adapter (generic low-quality adapters that over promise), as the power draw from such adapters are better equipped with not just good, but great software, and should have external power, just imagine a KVM switch without external power?
anyway, best bet is to use a USB 3.0 to HDMI, then the correct sub-category adapters, digital conversion dropped down to analogs. But VGA is generally setup and limited for max of 1200p resolution unless usually on proprietary developer kits.
the issue with USB A to USB C conversion, is that the software has to up-convert to a newer digital signal, and would fare incompatibility and have huge video degradation-noise. the USB-C will be at the mercy of the USB A, and the conversion would have to hardware-emulate twice, A to C. whereas with C alone, the video data would be native and direct.
docking stations that rely on USB 3.0, you're at the mercy of the software and the compatibility features the docking station engineers setup with the current OS environment. sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, because it has to trick the computer into thinking it's a separate video card in device manager, and then Windows has to be able to work that out with your current existing physical graphics cards. intel integrated graphics and discreet graphics will give you different results especially the older the hardware and operating system. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 has somewhat fixed common issues with multiple graphics adapter combinations in random, usually restarting the computer several times after playing around with enabling/disabling displays eventually yields desired results, to say the least, still better than most XP or w7 environments.
if you're looking for displaying something without a lot of updated software movement on the display, then it would be fine, but if the unit needs to output motion video and it needs to be smooth, or if data needs to be refreshed very quickly like real-time finance data, remote access to a stronger workstation with real physical video ports that are not emulated, would offer unmatched performance/frame-rates than compared to USB 3.0 to 4K video output.
if you can get the USB 3.0 to do display port, then it works sometimes, can transfer 4K content, but still needs to down convert to DVI and VGA resolution maximums. mini display port is better than display port with respect to conversion success with other adapters, generally in compatibility.
if the host computer has an available pci-express slot and available PSU resources on at least a Windows 8 era motherboard, just add another graphics card, the BIOS will usually adjust automatically.
latest model of microsoft wireless display (not Intel WIDI which is trash), will work with w8.1 but slower performance than compared to w10. HDMI and requires USB power, will do 4K, no VGA or DVI, however.
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