Next came the most demanding test: Using the Windows media player, we played back a movie from a Super Video-CD over the USB adapter. As was to be expected, the differences between the monitors connected to the on-board graphics and the USB adapter were the most pronounced here.

For starters, smooth playback was completely impossible in 32 bit mode. While things improved when reverting to 16 bit mode, the output was still not what we would call smooth. Also, reducing the resolution from 1024x768 to 800x600 had a smaller impact on performance than halving the color depth. This makes sense, because halving the color depth reduces the amount of data sent by 50 percent, while reducing the resolution to 800x600 drops it only about 39 percent.

"...not exactly smooth" - Videos on the external display.

Sharing The USB

In our tests, the adapter cooperated flawlessly with two passive USB hubs, which had only a minimal impact on screen output speed. Nonetheless, we wouldn't recommend transferring large amounts of data via USB when working on the auxiliary display. When we transferred files to an external hard drive, the screen output was so slow as to be completely unusable, effectively making any kind of practical work impossible.