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Dock recommendation: Lenovo X280, Debian12, KDE, HP G2 DisplayLink dock, Minecraft lag?? (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by Nimrod@lemm.ee to c/linuxhardware@lemmy.ml

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Okay, most of the relevant information is in the title - I got a nice deal on an old Lenovo X280, threw Debian on there with KDE. I have an HP Elite book for my work, and thus a work provided HP G2 DisplayLink dock with USBC connection.

In order for this dock to work, I had to install the displaylink drivers for "Ubuntu" from here. The drivers work as expected, and I am able to dock the X280 to my workstation, and use both external monitors. It feels pretty nice when I am just browsing/emailing/bullshitting. But when I tried to play Minecraft on it, the game feels incredibly laggy.

At first I thought this was due to an under-powered graphics card, but I did some testing with the external monitors using an HDMI cord directly to the X280, and everything feels clean and smooth when I use it in that way. The other odd glitch is that when I have the laptop docked, and I am trying to play MC, if I put MC on the external monitor = lag. But if I just drag the MC window to the laptop's screen = no lag.

I'm assuming this issue is related to the dock and/or drivers. I've looked around for some sort of workaround, but came up empty handed. So now I think the solution might be a different dock.
The dock would need to:

support USBC connections to my HP Elitebook, preferably without new drivers needed for the HP (dumb work won't give me admin rights, but I think I could convince them to install the necessary drivers for me. I WFH, so it makes sense that I would need a setup at home.
support USB/Lightning to my X280
have 1+ HDMI out or 2+ Display port out

So... Does anyone have any experience with Linux (Debian preferred) compatible docks that don't introduce input delay when gaming?

ps. Sweet community you got here. I subbed, and it's DEFINITELY going to result in me buying more stuff...

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[–] wavefunction@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Might be an issue with your X280 to Dock bandwidth. What cable are you using for the connection and does the X280 support the 10-, 20-, whatever-gigabits-per-second the dock expects? Not sure how to test the link rate, but I’d start looking there.

[–] Nimrod@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The dock comes with a usbc integrated. So I don’t actually think there’s an option to switch it.

After some more digging, it seems to be related to the the “display link” part of the dock. There are lots of reports out there where people are complaining about display link docks introducing latency on the inputs.

So I think a new dock is going to be required.

Thanks for the reply.

[–] wavefunction@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Ah in that case, I’ve never had a problem with the OWC line of docks: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-dock

They’re good across PC & Mac and have a solid return policy. They’ve also got newer models with more ports / capabilities, but that one has been working for the last couple of years.

The HP G5 dock (used) is also super reliable — HP USB-C G5 Essential Dock 72C71AA#ABA (Renewed) https://a.co/d/8SiyLxX

My spouse uses it with her dual 4K setup and it seems solid, but I haven’t gamed with it. No visible lag when doing “normal” things.

(EDIT: I realize you asked for Linux-compatible — these do work with my steam deck and other devices.)