USB graphics off a Mac Pro

[threeseventytwo]

Hey folks,

Just need a little sanity on this and thought I'd reach out, basically we were told to run our second monitors from our Late 2013 Mac Pro's from the USB ports. We can't get this to work, because as far as I am aware it has never worked, right?

Monitors off the Mac Pro is only from HDMI or thunderbolt with associated converters. USB was never an option was it?

Yours confusedly,
372

 

[mattspace]

there's adapters - Displaylink is the brand from memory, but they're processor driven displays, rather than gpu iirc.

but good lord, why would you given the machine has effectively 7 ports connected to the gpu for display? (readying popcorn)

 

[DearthnVader]

Hey folks,

Just need a little sanity on this and thought I'd reach out, basically we were told to run our second monitors from our Late 2013 Mac Pro's from the USB ports. We can't get this to work, because as far as I am aware it has never worked, right?

Monitors off the Mac Pro is only from HDMI or thunderbolt with associated converters. USB was never an option was it?

Yours confusedly,
372

Who told you that?

I can't think of any good reason to do it, maybe someone just got confused.

 

[threeseventytwo]

Yeah, just the IT dept, dopey isn't it? I knew there were adapters for USB but have never seen a Mac Pro attached to one for what I thought were obvious reasons (7 possible options!). I think they were just trying to be cheap on getting us thunderbolt to HDMI's

 

[DearthnVader]

Yeah, just the IT dept, dopey isn't it? I knew there were adapters for USB but have never seen a Mac Pro attached to one for what I thought were obvious reasons (7 possible options!). I think they were just trying to be cheap on getting us thunderbolt to HDMI's

You'll be so much happier with the T-Bolt to HDMI, a USB video won't have any graphics acceleration, and will require drivers that may not be compatible with macOS updates.

 

[mattspace]

I think they were just trying to be cheap on getting us thunderbolt to HDMI's

unless your screens are HDMI only, MiniDP to Displayport cables are going to be significantly cheaper than Displaylink adapters.