default screensavers missing

[kmillard]

i've noticed that when my display link monitor is the primary, that i am not able to choose (or see) a number of screensavers, that are otherwise available on another type monitor
i read a GL issue about screensavers on some old 2009 release notes for display link (google)
not sure if it is the same issue.

[Carlo]

The OS decides not to make available some screensavers that use advanced Core Animation features if the main screen does not support full 3D acceleration.

Carlo

[kmillard]

is their a way to fix it?
also with all due respect, i've never had a monitor with so many limitations/quirks...is there a reason behind that? (aoc 16")

[jeff-y]

> "i've never had a monitor with so many limitations/quirks"

It's not the monitor that has the limitations, it's the USB-to-display-adapter-using-your-CPU-as-a-graphics-card with the limitations. Yes, it has problems, but I haven't seen anything better, have you?

In this case, OS X disabled the demanding screen savers because it detected your "graphics card" is not powerful enough. Sounds reasonable to me! Maybe graphics cards manufacturers will come out with real external graphics cards soon, now that USB 3 and Thunderbolt are out.

[kmillard]

"OS X disabled the demanding screen savers because it detected your "graphics card" is not powerful enough"

please explain what this means.. i don't understand.

[jeff-y]

According to Carlo, for some of the demanding screen savers, Apple requires full hardware acceleration. DisplayLink adapters are just adapters, and don't have GPU's (graphics processing units). Therefore, DisplayLink adapters can't do their own hardware acceleration; they just use the CPU, which isn't very good for graphics-intense things. You've probably noticed that watching a movie on your DisplayLink-powered monitor is more sluggish than on your other (GPU-powered) monitor.

It's probably possible to have the DisplayLink adapters use the GPU in your computer instead of the CPU, and then implement all of the special functions needed for OS X to use "full hardware acceleration mode," but that would be really hard to do! There's a lot of special functions, and a lot of different underlying GPU's that you would have to depend on!

[kmillard]

thank you !!!