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Is it just me or does Duet Display suck?

pesos

pesos

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 30, 2006
701
196
One of the primary uses of my new 12.9" was going to be a secondary display for my surface pro 4 (while not doing iOS demos on it). Downloaded Duet and fir d it up and was extremely disappointed not only in the artifacts and blurriness on the iPad screen, but also the flickering and video corruption it introduced on my surface.

Is this just a Windows 10/surface pro 4/Intel thing? How about the blurriness of the ipp? Trying to look at outlook gave me a headache after just a minute or two. Hoping it's just a matter of them tweaking a few things!
 
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Duet Display actually screwed up my display settings on my laptop, I had to do a system restore to before I installed it.
It installs display drivers that don't get uninstalled even after you remove DD.

Odd things happened like locked windows explorer windows, they looked like they always were refreshing.

On the iPad side, it looked like it worked well, but I would be cautious about installing it again.
 
I had issues with the Duet display not being useful due to resolution even though I played with it. It was a nice thought but it was so crappy I haven't used it at all. I have a USB Lenovo display I can hook up if I need an extra screen...just plug and play. I'm hoping they can update the Duet software to make it work - would be nice to have a second display when I travel for work
 
pesos said:
One of the primary uses of my new 12.9" was going to be a secondary display for my surface pro 4 (while not doing iOS demos on it). Downloaded Duet and fir d it up and was extremely disappointed not only in the artifacts and blurriness on the iPad screen, but also the flickering and video corruption it introduced on my surface.

Is this just a Windows 10/surface pro 4/Intel thing? How about the blurriness of the ipp? Trying to look at outlook gave me a headache after just a minute or two. Hoping it's just a matter of them tweaking a few things!
Click to expand...
In my experience, it crashes more than it should, but as long as you use it in a "native" resolution it won't be blurry. For the 12.9" iPad Pro, that would be 1366x1024 assuming you have scaling turned on. I have used Duet Display with an HP Elitebook 820 running Windows 7 (my employer isn't yet on Windows 10).
 
Woah, glad this thread cropped up, I was literally just about to buy it to use with my Pro.
Is it that bad constantly, or is it just teething troubles? Might just have to find an alternative. Anyone got suggestions?
 
Bbqthis said:
Never had issues using it with a 5k iMac, MacBook Air, or retina MacBook Pro. Sounds like a windows thing.
Click to expand...
FOr the record I don't own anything Windows - I've tested it with my 2009 MBP and 2012 MBA (both are running El Captian). The results were the same on both machines. I'm going to be upgrading my work laptop to a 15 inch MBP in the fall - maybe it will work better with newer hardware.

Cheers,
Bobbie
 
batristain said:
FOr the record I don't own anything Windows - I've tested it with my 2009 MBP and 2012 MBA (both are running El Captian). The results were the same on both machines. I'm going to be upgrading my work laptop to a 15 inch MBP in the fall - maybe it will work better with newer hardware.

Cheers,
Bobbie
Click to expand...
It's very possible! My MacBook Air was a 2014 and it seemed to work just fine. It started to lag a little when I hooked up a real external display with it, but that's sort of expected.
 
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I use Duet with a 2011 13' Macbook Pro and iPad Air 2. It works fairly well, slight choppiness with certain programs/apps, but otherwise no complaints. I have been wondering if the faster processor of a newer 13' or 15' pro and an 12.7" iPad Pro would make is super smooth, believing the main issue is USB 2.0 on my macbook and slower processor in the Air 2.
 
Works fine fine my Lenovo laptop - I wouldn't call it lag free as they advertise but it's more than usable and well worth the money. I run it at the iPad native resolution (i.e unscaled)
 
For me, it works great on my Macbook Pro 15" Late 2013, with 12.9" Pro. I was hesitant at first, but it actually runs pretty much lag free for me. I put it at the highest resolution, then ran my GPU intensive iTunes visualizer [Aeon] on it, without a problem. No dropped frames actually! I don't even have a dedicated GPU in my Macbook.
 
pesos said:
One of the primary uses of my new 12.9" was going to be a secondary display for my surface pro 4 (while not doing iOS demos on it). Downloaded Duet and fir d it up and was extremely disappointed not only in the artifacts and blurriness on the iPad screen, but also the flickering and video corruption it introduced on my surface.

Is this just a Windows 10/surface pro 4/Intel thing? How about the blurriness of the ipp? Trying to look at outlook gave me a headache after just a minute or two. Hoping it's just a matter of them tweaking a few things!
Click to expand...
Diet display isn't great. I had success with changing the screen resolution to something much lower and it cleared up very nicely. Inbasicallybrediced it to half of what the actual 12.9 IPP resolution is.
 
Might be just you.

I use the app along with my 2013 rMBP and it's become an essential part of my workflow.
 
although I've never used it on a windows laptop or an iPad pro, I have both Duet Display & Air Display. If you are having issues with Duet, you may want to try Air Display. FWIW, I've never had issues with either (used on a macbook Pro, Macbook, iPad 4 & iPad Mini 4). While I've experienced similar performance from both, I prefer Air Display, as it offers the ability to connect over wifi as well as with a cable. Connecting via cable is always better (less lag) but sometimes I don't have a cable with me, or it's just more convenient to not use a cable with how I have things set up. Air Display does seem to charge for all of the major upgrades (I am on version 3 now), while I don't think I've ever had to pay for an upgrade to Duet display.
 
Yes Duet Display app sucks. I bought it when it was on sale and it messed up my PC. Good thing I had a image before I installed it.

I got a refund for it.

Granted the iOS developer tried helping me with my problem where the screen would freeze on the iPad when switching different quality video and resolution.
 
Bbqthis said:
Never had issues using it with a 5k iMac, MacBook Air, or retina MacBook Pro. Sounds like a windows thing.
Click to expand...

Runs great on my Windows 7 work laptop and my Surface Pro 3!

The ONLY issue I have is that I can;t keep the 12.9" pro charged. The Air works better.
 
I bought Duet Display when they had a sale going on sometime. I wanted to use it with my 12" MacBook and 12.9" Pro, but the screen quality was so terrible that I stopped using it after a day.

What annoyed me about it was seeing such a crappy quality image on the iPad.

Last weekend my friend was over, and I demonstrated it to him. It was still bad, even though it's been months with many updates since I bought it. He agreed that it was pretty bad image quality.
 
4004786 said:
I bought Duet Display when they had a sale going on sometime. I wanted to use it with my 12" MacBook and 12.9" Pro, but the screen quality was so terrible that I stopped using it after a day.

What annoyed me about it was seeing such a crappy quality image on the iPad.

Last weekend my friend was over, and I demonstrated it to him. It was still bad, even though it's been months with many updates since I bought it. He agreed that it was pretty bad image quality.
Click to expand...
Make sure you are using the right resolution. From my recollection, on the 12.9" iPad Duet Display was defaulting to a scale more appropriate for the 9.7" iPad. After you change it, it should be crystal clear. My main issue with Duet Display is that it crashes.
 
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KPOM said:
Make sure you are using the right resolution. From my recollection, on the 12.9" iPad Duet Display was defaulting to a scale more appropriate for the 9.7" iPad. After you change it, it should be crystal clear. My main issue with Duet Display is that it crashes.
Click to expand...

That's a good suggestion, KPOM!

My friend and I extensively tested a whole bunch of resolution settings on Duet and on the 12" Macbook. Nothing could make it as high quality as we wanted. The text and color quality were both noticeably worse than the 12" Macbook's display.

Are you able to achieve retina-level crispness using Duet Display?
 
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Used it with a 1080p PC laptop and it worked great (once you get the resolution set right) for a long while. However, after a recent update on my iPad, it lags pretty bad now. Not sure why.
 
I've no experience working duet with a windows machine, but even with an old entry model 2009 21" iMac it works perfectly. If you want you can get an iPad Pr native, extreme sharp high resolution hardly readable but you can fit a lot in it. I prefer a bit lower resolution so the letters are bigger. I've never noticed that it's unsharp/not crisp.

At first its a bit fiddling between the highest resolution and readability, but I use it as a second screen for communication (mail, messengers, etc) or when I need second documents. the 21" is just a tad to small for that, but together with my 12.9" iPad it extends the usefulness and life of the 21" iMac. (Together with an SSD in the iMac which is the best investment for upgrading & extending the life of an iMac/Macbook Pro/laptop).
 
I don't enjoy duet at all, I thought it was a saving grace and the idea is great but the reality doesn't live up.
 
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