ASUS ZenScreen MB16AC USB-C Portable Monitor

[Michael]

I don´t think this is a touch screen, which is a shame and a missed opportunity. I assumed it would be 60hz but based on 50wpm blur limit it sounds like its lower.

For reference, 50 WMP is just my estimate for when slowdown occurs.

[Ardje]

Looks like the reason it didn't work on your test machine when using USB-C and worked more responsive when connected to a Mac is the display supporting 2 different input interfaces, DisplayPort 1.3 (as an alternate mode of USB 3.1, ~25.92 Gb/s) and DisplayLink (compressed video stream over plain USB 3.0, ~4 Gb/s). Could you check if it's true?

Exactly...
I have a armhf based chromebook connected to a HDMI monitor by a using a USB-C splitter.... there is no framebuffer chip, there is just displayport on usb-C, together with USB-3.
If your system is not capable of multiplexing displayport onto the USB-C you already have a problem.
As a matter of fact: my usb-c get's split into usb-3 and the display port is converted to HDMI which is then connected to a HDMI-to-Display port converter.
And I still get audio :-).
DisplayLink on usb 3 is proprietary crap, so we can't use that anyway on arm.
The question is: does that display support real displayport on USB-C, or is it just DisplayLink proprietary crap? m132 suggests it supports displayport.
The next question is: does linux on intel have support for displayport on USB-C, and if so, what hardware? How is it connected? Will I be able to multiplex the output of a gt1080 or whatever they are called onto a USB-C slot?
I can test my splitter on my zotac sn-970, but I doubt it will work, at least not with the nvidia card in the system.

[chithanh]

Michael

So with the DisplayLink binary Linux driver, it's possible to get the ZenScreen MB16AC working, while the DisplayPort Alternate Mode support is currently lacking.

I did also try the ZenScreen on a macOS system and it worked fine there. In fact, the display appeared to be more responsive under macOS than Linux.

So did you also try to run Linux on the Mac to see whether DisplayPort alternate mode works? Preferably a kernel that has the USB Type-C port manager?
To me it appears like you just connected the screen to Linux computers which did not have hardware support for DisplayPort alternate mode.

[starshipeleven]

Michael
So did you also try to run Linux on the Mac to see whether DisplayPort alternate mode works? Preferably a kernel that has the USB Type-C port manager?
To me it appears like you just connected the screen to Linux computers which did not have hardware support for DisplayPort alternate mode.

The screen's own spec sheet seem to indicate that it has Displayport over usb-c https://www.asus.com/Monitors/MB16AC/specifications/
( USB-C mode and USB 3.0 mode while "**Drivers are required for USB 3.0 mode, please find Support Site to download the driver" and it ships with a " DisplayPort™ over USB-C™ cable ")

As a sidenote, calling "Displayport over USB-C" just "USB-C" is going to cause massive, and I mean fucking mindboggingly massive confusion for customers as not many usb-c ports can send displayport over, at least at the moment. Not to speak about the special cable required while the ports are the same.

I love the smell of clusterfuck in the morning.

[starshipeleven]

welp vbullettin is harassing me! (post blocked above, about the displayport-over usb-c)

[ypnos]

I wonder why they couldn't spend another dollar for a physical mini display port or HDMI port on the display. Given that all laptops come with HDMI and/or miniDP outputs, but very few come with USB-C and out of these, not all of them support the necessary alternate mode.

I wouldn't buy this display simply to avoid the hassle. The DisplayLink is no alternative. Want to use it on a friend's laptop? Need to install a driver first. Apart from that, it is obviously too slow given the inferior bandwidth of USB 3.0, the compression it needs is laggy and also consumes the CPU. Why did they even bother with this? So that you need only one cable?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

I strongly advise Linux users to stay well clear of it. It was incredibly unstable ( kernel oopses and X segfaults ).

While I have same experience with Lenovo ThinkPad USB 3.0 Dock (model DU9019D1) later I found that X segfaults is not DisplayLink issue, because I get exactly same segfaults with Dell WD15 (pure USB 3.1 device that utilize DisplayPort alternative mode). ThinkPad USB 3.0 Dock and Dell WD15 rendering issues is also the same (with Intel DDX and modesetting DDX too). Mind blowing, right?

So while DisplayLink solution have own issues, most of dock problems is came from X open source code, rather from DisplayLink closed source code.

[andrei_me]

Michael has the situation changed for this monitor? Do you still need to use the binary driver?

[Leo Ice]

"Weighs only 2 months"
So how do we convert that to ounces or grams?
An apple a day, so the weight of 30 average apples equals a month?

I think this phraseology is so new =)))But it sounds really funny and stupid

[Leo Ice]

Guys, sorry, I'll write a little off topic (did not find how to create new ones), but I'm very interested in the question of monitors and in particular how they will work with LINUX. I'm looking to buy a few monitors. Which one is better? Which advise me? I love widescreen screens. I hope you approve of these options. Thank you!