Cursor starts lagging over time during virtual display mirroring + DisplayLink mouse lag and high CPU usage (2 separate issues conflated)

[xezrunner]

I'm using a MacBook Air M1 with 8GB of RAM. My usual setup of BetterDisplay is:

• Connect external display (1920x1080@75Hz LoDPI)
• Turn off internal MacBook display
• Enable a virtual monitor (2560x1440 HiDPI)
• Mirror it to the external display

This works fine for the first couple of minutes. As I continue working, the cursor eventually starts to visually freeze (but logically still moving), then it becomes choppy, until I disable and re-enable mirroring.

Making the virtual monitor 1440p LoDPI or any other resolution also has this behavior.

This has been an issue on Sonoma as well, and is still an issue in the latest macOS 15.1 betas that I'm currently using.

Is this something BetterDisplay could have influence over, or is mirroring completely up to macOS?

[waydabber]

Mirroring is fully macOS. However virtual screen mirroring (same with Sidecar, DisplayLink etc) generally has cursor issues on Apple Silicon (fine on Intel) since macOS Monterey 12.4 (if I recall correctly). Apple never fixed these issues since then despite some pleas from the community.

[xezrunner]

Ah, good to know that it isn't just BetterDisplay being affected by this. Thanks!
I assume there are no workarounds for this at the moment, other than toggling the mirroring when this happens.

[waydabber]

Probably - but to be honest this specific cursor issue is atypical. Maybe it is caused by the difference in refresh rates (60Hz for virtual screen vs 75Hz for the display)? Make sure both run at 60Hz.

[xezrunner]

Setting the refresh rate to 60Hz only makes it less noticeable, but the cursor certainly still becomes visually laggy over time.
It also does happen even if I mirror the internal MacBook screen to the external display.

I have since discovered that with the "Enforce virtual screen mirroring" option turned on, I can click Stop mirroring and it'll do a quick stop-and-reconnect, fixing the issue if the lag becomes severe enough.

I have the external display connected through a dongle with HDMI, not sure if that's also something that could cause problems, but this to me feels like a software issue, likely on the macOS side.

[waydabber]

Hmm. If you mirror the internal screen to the external display, then it's not a virtual screen related problem. Interesting. Generally mirroring should work fine in macOS.

[dkvdm]

I'm having similar issues with the Elgato Prompter running over DisplayLink: when BetterDisplay is running the framerate/mouse is choppy, but when I close the BetterDisplay app everything becomes smooth again. Tahoe 26.1

[waydabber]

Hi @dkvdm - is this something that worked well before and is a new problem after updating any relevant software (macOS, DisplayLink app or BetterDisplay)?

[dkvdm]

Since upgrading to Tahoe 26.1 I’ve started to notice this.

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[waydabber]

Ok, no worries. Make sure you use DisplayLink driver 13.1. If you are on 14.x, you'll have this issue. This is a known bug with the latest release of the DisplayLink driver.

Click on "Legacy Releases" here, and download the appropriate version.

https://www.synaptics.com/products/displaylink-graphics/downloads/macos

Before installing the 13.1 version, disconnect the display and uninstall the previous DisplayLink application (move the DisplayLink application to the Trash).

[waydabber]

(sorry, updated my comment: all 14.x driver releases are affected, 13.1 should work).

[dkvdm]

I just installed 14.1 based on your previously edited comment, and that actually solved the problem as well! amazing, thank you

[waydabber]

Honestly I am not entirely sure what is happening. I had the 12 version and things worked fine. I updated to 14.2 and I experienced the same lag. Then downgraded to 13.1 and then this resolved the issue. I noticed that disabling the f.lux option in the driver further helped with performance for some reason. But then to investigate further I reinstalled 14.2 and things seem to work properly.

I got a similar report about the DisplayLink driver after an user updated to 14.2, that's why my conclusion was that it's the 14.x that causes the problem, but now I am not sure.

Let me know if the problem resurfaces!

[waydabber]

One other user reported that he needed to turn OFF these settings to stop DisplayLink from lagging. He had a similar experience with the app "Alcove" which have similar options:

[waydabber]

@dkvdm - ok, it seems like this option is causing the issue. It must be disabled:

[kerkhra]

@dkvdm - ok, it seems like this option is causing the issue. It must be disabled:

Thx. I confirm that it was this option that caused the problem.