this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
753 points (99.0% liked)
Technology
59219 readers
3230 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And also USB c
USB-C display output uses the Display Port protocol
Can it use others, and is there a benefit? USB C makes a lot of sense; lower material usage, small, carries data, power and connects to almost everything now.
I believe USB-C is the only connector supported for carrying DisplayPort signals other than DisplayPort itself.
The biggest issue with USB-C for display in my opinion is that cable specs vary so much. A cable with a type c end could carry anywhere from 60-10000MB/s and deliver anywhere from 5-240W. What's worse is that most aren't labeled, so even if you know what spec you need you're going to have a hell of a time finding it in a pile of identical black cables.
Not that I dislike USB-C. It's a great connector, but the branding of USB has always been a mess.
would be neat to somehow have a standard color coding. kinda how USB 3 is (usually) blue, maybe there could be thin bands of color on the connector?
better yet, maybe some raised bumps so visually impaired people could feel what type it was. for example one dot is USB 2, two could be USB 3, etc
Have you looked at the naming of the usb standards? No you havn't otherwise you wouldn't make this sensible suggestion.
the shenenigans with USB 3 naming you mean? you're right, this would be too logical for USB lol
Don't worry, they made it worse with usb 4.
oh they did? how so?
USB 3.2 2x2 with 20 Gbps is the same as USB 4 Gen 2×2 with 20 Gbps
USB 4 Gen3x2 has 40 Gbps and was then renamed to USB 4 1.0
jesus what the fuck
Please think of the shareholders... :(
I think that the biggest issue with dp over usbc is that people are going to try to use the same cable for 4k and large data transfers at the same time, and will then whine about weird behaviour.
Yep, very true. I didn't understand this until I couldn't connect my Mac to my screen via the USB C given with the computer, I had to buy another (and order it in specifically). Pick up a cable, and I have no idea which version it is.
Dont forget the limited length. I cant remember exactly but usb c delivering power has a max length of arpund 4 metres
Yeah I have multiple USB cables, some at 30w, and some at 140w. Get them mixed up all the time! More companies need to at least brand the wattage on the connectors.
This is the big issue I have with with "USB C". USB c is just the connector which can be used for so many things. What actual is supported depends on things you can't see, like the cable construction or what the device supports.
There's some really high bandwidth stuff that USB-C isn't rated for. You have to really press the limits, though. Something like 4k + 240Hz + HDR.
That doesn't even seem so unreasonable. Is that the limit though? My cable puts a gigabyte a second down it so I wouldn't imagine that would hit the limit.
USB-C with Thunderbolt currently had a limit of 40Gbit/sec. Wikipedia has a table of what DisplayPort can do at that bandwidth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort
See the section "Resolution and refresh frequency limits". The table there shows it'd be able to do 4k/144hz/10bpp just fine, but can't keep above 60hz for 8k.
Its an uncompressed video signal, and that takes a lot of bandwidth. Though there is a simple lossless compression mode.
It is trivial arithmetic: 4.52403840*2160 ≈ 9 GB/ s. Not even close. Even worse, that cable will struggle to get ordinary 60hz 4k delivered.
4.5 × 240 × 3840 × 2160 ≈ 9 GB/s
It seems markdown formatting ruined your numbers because of the asterisks. Whatever is written between two of those turns italic, so they're not ideal for multiplication symbols here on Lemmy (or any other place that implements markdown formatting).
I think the maths got a bit funky there. I don't think a cable capable of such speeds would struggled to do 60Hz at 4K, it surely doesn't need close to a gigabyte a second?
It surely does. Check pirates post for clean math formatting
USB C is just a connector, you might be referring to Displayport over USB C which is basically just the same standard with a different connector at the end. That or Thunderbolt I guess
I thought thunderbolt was DP passthrough as well
USB C seems like a good idea but in reality all it really did was take my 5 different, not interchangeable, but visually distinct, cables, and make them all look identical and require labeling
I love having mysterious cables that may or may not do things I expect them to when plugged into ports that may or may not support the features I think they do.
If the implementation is so broad that I have to break out my label maker, can we even really call it a "standard"
you mean thunderbolt?