USB 3 to VGA Adapter

[olistabilize]

Hello, First of all I apologize if this is in the wrong section.. I'm new.

My current set up is a Sony Vaio Mid/High end laptop with an external 22" 1080p Monitor connected to the VGA port.

I would really love another 22" connected (As this model is cheap and excellent for the price, And can't have enough desktop real estate) but obviously I only have one VGA out.

I came across this online:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/30306471/-/Product.html

I can't seem to find much information about it. I don't plan to run games through it, simply just to have a further extended desktop.

I'm assuming it just adds another output for the laptops GPU (Mind you, I do have two).

If anyone has had any experience or information that would be awesome.

Many Thanks
Oli

 

[Harvey]

I searched Google for reviews. I found it offered at several major U.S. outlets, but no reviews from users or professional reviewers. Either it's too new to have gotten any, or nobody's buying it and commenting.

I know that's not much help, but it's all I could find. If you're in the U.K., you might try to find a B&M store where you could try it before buying. If you do, come back and tell us about it. I'm sure others would like to know, as well.

Good luck.

 

[olistabilize]

Thanks for the reply ..

Yeah, I had a look around and the only reviews I could find were people saying that it plugged in and worked.. Not stating the what extent and the quality.

I shall keep on looking or just go ahead and grab one.

Will keep you posted if it's the latter, Might even write up a review .

Many Thanks
Oli

 

[wirednuts]

is it a displaylink adapter then?

 

[olistabilize]

I don't think there related

 

[HarryLui]

USB to VGA adapter is only useful for excel, word, or light web surfing. It doesn't have enough performance to run the video or flash video.

 

[paperwastage]

USB to VGA adapter is only useful for excel, word, or light web surfing. It doesn't have enough performance to run the video or flash video.

that's b/c old-school USB 2-> VGA has to go under the USB 2 bandwidth limitation, AND using CPU to drive the graphics

with USB 3, some bottleneck on the bandwidth is gone.... but you'll still be using the CPU for graphics, so the question is whether the device works properly or not

 

[olistabilize]

So it does only utilize the CPU for graphics processing?

I may just get one and if it turns out to be useless I will send it back.

 

[Bryf50]

These things are more like a USB graphics card than an adaptor for your current one. Its going to be bad for anything graphics intensive.

 

[GotNoRice]

I set someone up with one of these, and it works well enough for basic 2D needs.

The biggest downside IMO is the driver. It's pretty much the epitome of an engrish laden barely functional chinese-written driver.

It will "work" but be prepared to deal with quirks fairly often. Stuff like the monitor randomly disappearing and not coming back unless you completely re-install the driver, blue screens when you try to view certain content on that monitor, etc.

 

[Modelworks]

It is only going to be good for 2d needs. Conversion from a serial interface then back to parallel is going to be the bottleneck, regardless of how fast the serial link is , it could be twice that of USB3 and it wouldn't matter. It is like trying to send the water from a fire truck through a garden hose. Graphics chipsets process data as parallel data not serial so that conversion has to take place and the chips that do this are not the speediest things around. Companies are not spending a lot of research on making it faster either because the market just isn't there for it.