Latest DisplayLink drivers and DirectX fullscreen errors

[mjh]

After the latest drivers (also tried the June drivers), DirectX is having fullscreen issues and various games (notably Skyrim and Rift) won't launch in fullscreen mode (they error out). This did not happen in the past. I do see that other threads in the recent (4 to 6 months) have experienced similar issues.

Any ideas? Support debug log attached.

[JamesH]

Hi,

Do you recall which version of DisplayLink software this was previously working with?

Thanks,
James

[mjh]

Do you recall which version of DisplayLink software this was previously working with?


I'm not sure of the exact version, but, when I started having the error, I noticed that my driver was dated in June (I assume I had 7.3 M1 installed), and I then noticed that there was 7.4 out, so, I updated to that... I'm going to try installing 7.2 M1 and see if that helps (and will reply here after I try)

[mjh]

BTW - just tried going back to 7.2 M1, 7.1, and back to 7.0 even (after a full uninstall and reboot each), and no dice.

While I was there, I also tried uninstalling all DisplayLink drivers and just trying without any DisplayLink drivers installed, and yes - this allows DirectX games to run in fullscreen mode without error, so, without changing anything else, I'm pretty sure it's the DisplayLink pieces causing the issue.

[Ferroh]

Displaylink,

I would really appreciate some feedback on the status of this well known issue. My docking station is stored and collecting dust until it's fixed.

Thank you.

[Vald]

This is a known issue and has been for some time. I wouldn't hold your breath.

[JamesH]

Hi,

Thanks for the information - I'll raise this internally tomorrow.

Thanks,
James

[Tvede]

I have personally experinced something similar, with the 7.4 version, where instead it was a direct3d error (internally) happening in Battlefield 3. When running though debugger, the stack trace revealed that there was some sort of retangular copying, which later caused a crash. (installing version 7.3 fixes the problem.. )

[mjh]

Thanks for the information - I'll raise this internally tomorrow.

Thanks,
James

Hi James -

Just wanted to check and see if there was any findings / outcomes on this. Thanks!

[JamesH]

Hi,

Nothing to report just yet but will keep you posted.

Thanks,
James

[Mark]

I'm also having issues with the display link drivers.

After the drivers are installed and even though the USB monitor is not plugged in, most games will not run in fullscreen mode. I believe it has something to do with my laptop running an NVIDIA Optimus setup.

Using the NVIDIA control panel, if I force the game to use my Intel integrated graphics, the game will run. If I give the NVIDIA driver the option to use auto-select or force it to use the NVIDIA processor, the games error out again.

Once I uninstall the DisplayLink drivers, everything works fine again.

[JamesH]

Hi,

The issue you describe with Optimus should be fixed in the next release.

Thanks,
James

[Michaeltymcnamara]

I have exactly the error that Mark reports -

I get the message 'Direct3D renderer creation error:' when starting a game (such as Wizard101) if the DirectLink software is installed.

There is no need to have the USB to VGA device plugged into the laptop.

If I uninstall the DisplayLink Core, then the game works again (but the multiple monitors do not work).

Setting that the WizardGraphicalclinet.exe uses integrated graphics (instead of NVidia) doesn't affect the failure.

Setting so the game doesn't use full screen doesn't affect the failure.

Uninstalling and reinstalling between tasks is quite tedious. :mad:

I have Windows 7 Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE with latest drivers (as of 11/2013) , and DirectX version 11.0, and latest DisplayLink software.

I have gathered the DisplayLink support files and will send them to someone from Support; posting them here seems to be giving too much information to the world. It is interesting that you have a basic encryption on the DisplayLink logs; but that all of the details of my laptop and what programs are installed and when you gather in plaintext; and hence if I posted them all could oggle my fine machine's specifications :D

[Tebor]

I have exactly the same issue. The newest release does not help.

[JamesH]

I have exactly the error that Mark reports -

I get the message 'Direct3D renderer creation error:' when starting a game (such as Wizard101) if the DirectLink software is installed.

There is no need to have the USB to VGA device plugged into the laptop.

If I uninstall the DisplayLink Core, then the game works again (but the multiple monitors do not work).

Setting that the WizardGraphicalclinet.exe uses integrated graphics (instead of NVidia) doesn't affect the failure.

Setting so the game doesn't use full screen doesn't affect the failure.

Uninstalling and reinstalling between tasks is quite tedious. :mad:

I have Windows 7 Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE with latest drivers (as of 11/2013) , and DirectX version 11.0, and latest DisplayLink software.

I have gathered the DisplayLink support files and will send them to someone from Support; posting them here seems to be giving too much information to the world. It is interesting that you have a basic encryption on the DisplayLink logs; but that all of the details of my laptop and what programs are installed and when you gather in plaintext; and hence if I posted them all could oggle my fine machine's specifications :D

Hi,

I've just sent you a PM about this.

Thanks,
James

[JamesH]

I have exactly the same issue. The newest release does not help.

Hi,

What application are you trying to run and what is the error message?

Please attach the logs from this tool as soon as you get the error message:
http://www.displaylink.com/support/ticket.php?id=269

Thanks,
James

[Tebor]

Hi James,

as soon as I start a game in Steam in full screen mode an error messsage appears:
- Skyrim: Faild to initalize renderer. Unknown error creating the renderer.
- Crusader Kings 2: CK 2 Funktionier nicht mehr. Windows kann online nach einer Lösung für das Problem suchen. (The genuine Windows error message: CK2 does not work any longer. Windows can search online for a solution for the problem.)
- X-Com: Failed to create the D3D9 Device! This can happen if the desktop is locked. Exiting...
- Railroad Tycoon 3: No hardware accelerated DirectX 8.1 drivers present. (translation form german)

Probably there are more games... I haven't checked all...

The first three games are running perfectly fine in a windowed mode. RT3 doesent have a windowed mode.

All games were running on my old laptop without Nvidia Optimus.

If you need the log-files from other crashes then X-Com please tell me.

Thanks for your help,
Tebor

[Tebor]

There are still the same problems with the 7.5M0 version.

[Tebor]

No reaction at all? Not even a look in the log-files? :confused:

Disappointing. :mad:

[kikendo]

There are still the same problems with the 7.5M0 version.

Latest version also rendered Ableton Live version 6.0.11 completely useless. Windows render with empty contents.
7.3 is the last stable, usable one.

This problem is unacceptable!

[mir77]

Reporting problems with following games:
Only in windowed mode works Shadow Warrior and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Not Working at all: State of Decay, Call of Juarez Gunslinger.
Working fine: BioShock Infinite
DisplayLink software in 7.5.52874.0.

So, if you cannot fix this, is there any way to disable your software temporarly? Stopping processes in Task Manager does not work.

[JamesH]

Hi,

In some cases stopping the DisplayLink Service may help.

- Search for "Services"
- Select "DisplayLinkManager"
- Select "Stop the service"

We are looking into a way of dynamically doing this.

Thanks,
James

[mir77]

Hello,
your advice was useless like I wrote before. Anyway I got for you list of some other games:

Far Cry 3 is working
PAYDAY: The Heist is working not - no error, just crashes to desktop
Dead Rising 2 - Classic not responding dialog.

Hope this information will be useful. You can let us know about your progress in solving this bug. It will be highly appriciated.

[mir77]

Here is link for list of games I encountered while having Toshiba Dynadock U3.0 with DisplayLink technology. I tried to sumarize which of theme are working correctly and which are not. First section are my own games bought on Steam, other section is for games with problems I encountered on this forum.
I hoped I could find some kind of relation between game engine and it's functionality. For now I'm pretty sure Unreal Engine 3 does not work. Thats all. Feel free to add another games to this document. Thank you.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuDyo1zurOrIdE05dkpoSFdFc09iOWoydTJYdnJpR 0E&usp=sharing

[picafoodigs]

Anything new on this issue? It's extremely irritating not to being able to play any games on my laptop because of these drivers :(

[mir77]

Nothing new. I am really pissed off. 8 of 14 of my games don't work and other useres added 21 other games with issues. There is no way how to make them work. Great buy for more than hundred bucks.

Updated list of games is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuDyo1zurOrIdE05dkpoSFdFc09iOWoydTJYdnJpR 0E&usp=drive_web#gid=0

[Kariff]

Hello !

I use this software with 5 monitors, and since the last update i can´t play the game World of tanks. http://worldoftanks.eu/

What is going on ? I i unnistal de driver it woks with the new driver dont.

Please give me a solution for that.

Best regards

Kariff

[aprimatic]

Hello !

Any heads-up regarding this problem ? Unfortunately, the latest drivers release last week does not seem address the fullscreen issue with some DirectX applications :(

Thanks for the 7.5M1 update though !

Regards

[Vin]

Hello !

Any heads-up regarding this problem ? Unfortunately, the latest drivers release last week does not seem address the fullscreen issue with some DirectX applications :(

Thanks for the 7.5M1 update though !

Regards

Damn, I was really hoping it would. Thanks for the heads up though, so I don't have to try :/

[picafoodigs]

It's been almost two months since the last reply. No response whatsoever. Not even a heads up saying they're looking into this. Not anything

I've been talking everyone out off buying stuff from Displaylink. Their products are clearly broken in terms of functionality :mad:

DisplayLink, can we at least get an answer if this is even going to get solved at all? Or have you given up on this issue?

[Kushan]

I would also like an update on this issue.

[Marcel.L.]

I agree. I am experiencing - for over a year now - Problems with StarCraft II which I can only use in windowed full screen mode when the drivers are installed. I tried unplugging, deactivating the service and even the usb-entry in the registry path I deactivated. But only uninstalling helps.

Interesting thing is: When I reinstall the drivers I can still use StarCraft II in full screen mode. Only AFTER I connected one monitor I no longer can use full screen mode. It then also does not help to unplug everything and stop the displayLink service (and restart).

Anyway, since I am not playing on the attached monitors but on my primary big scree connected via HDIM I'd prefere something else than always un- and reinstalling everything. That's not what i bought this product for!

So, when can we expect a fix for this?

[mir77]

I am dissapointed about this situation too. Found out solution using Fullscreenizer for some games (tested on Mass Effect and Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior). For the StarCraft II I have no problem. Works like charm.

[Kushan]

I am dissapointed about this situation too. Found out solution using Fullscreenizer for some games (tested on Mass Effect and Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior). For the StarCraft II I have no problem. Works like charm.

That's a really good tip! I'll try that out when I get my laptop back.

Again though, I would love an update on the issue - even if it's just to say "no fix possible", at least then we'd know.

[Lorodion]

This is an important issue and the staff must look into this!

[TallonIV123]

I am also having this issue (and have had it for several months now). Would appreciate an update on whether this issue is being resolved or not.

[picafoodigs]

The last drivers 7.6 M0 fix one of the two main issues I've had
with the displaylink drivers on only one game. (Windowed mode only)

I have the ASUS USB 2.0 USB20_HZ1_DOCKINGSTATION (http://www.asus.com/Accessories/USB20_HZ1_DOCKINGSTATION/) running on an ASUS X73S and Nvidia GT 540M with Win7 64bit

The new drivers let the game SSF4 AE start in Windowed mode only. You cannot go into full screen as the screen will literally flicker endlessly.

Other games behave still the same "Cannot create D3D Device..."

I'd also appreciate some feedback from DisplayLink. At least tell us it will never work so we can get rid of these expensive USB hubs. I have not recommended any of Displaylink's products to costumers, colleagues and friends because of this.

[Fektoer]

I'll add my two cents.

With the latest drivers:
Final Fantasy XIV won't work in full screen (directx error)
League of Legends won't work at all (directx error)

On top of it all, the applications that do work -all- suffer from severe fps drops at irregular intervals. The application would run fine for a while on 59-60 fps until it suddenly drops to an unplayable 6-7 fps for a few minutes after which it will go back to normal fps. Rince and repeat. This happens with windows 7, windows 8, windows 8.1. With the dock connected ánd the dock unplugged. With extended display, projected display, non projected display.

Also, even when it's working 'fine' the displaymanager service hogs up an insane amount of cpu power. On my laptop with an i7-4771 processor, 16 gig of internal memory, nvidia 7600m gfx card, simply moving my internet explorer window around will use 40-50% (!!) of cpu capacity.

I uninstalled everything that had displaylink in the name and now all my applications show a noticable fps improvement, i can play my games fullscreen on a projected display, no more fps drops and moving my windows around won't use half of my cpu.

[Kushan]

I'll add my two cents.

With the latest drivers:
Final Fantasy XIV won't work in full screen (directx error)
League of Legends won't work at all (directx error)

On top of it all, the applications that do work -all- suffer from severe fps drops at irregular intervals. The application would run fine for a while on 59-60 fps until it suddenly drops to an unplayable 6-7 fps for a few minutes after which it will go back to normal fps. Rince and repeat. This happens with windows 7, windows 8, windows 8.1. With the dock connected ánd the dock unplugged. With extended display, projected display, non projected display.

Also, even when it's working 'fine' the displaymanager service hogs up an insane amount of cpu power. On my laptop with an i7-4771 processor, 16 gig of internal memory, nvidia 7500m gfx card, simply moving my internet explorer window around will use 40-50% (!!) of cpu capacity.

I uninstalled everything that had displaylink in the name and now all my applications show a noticable fps improvement, i can play my games fullscreen on a projected display, no more fps drops and moving my windows around won't use half of my cpu.

I'm not an expert, but I believe the DisplayLink software essentially works by emulating a graphics renderer entirely in software. This is why you see such a large CPU spike as it scrambles to update its virtual framebuffer.

I don't know enough to know how well this can be optimised, I'd like to think that it could be little more than a blitting operation between the actual graphics card's framebuffer and the displaylink one but that's above my level of knowledge. Ideally, they'd utilise the graphics hardware itself to do all of this and maybe they do, but there certainly seems to be room for improvement.

In any case, it seems their implimentation isn't complete and certain operations (such as fullscreen directX) cause their driver to fall over somewhat. It would be nice if they could disable the displaylink stuff when the dock is not in use, for a start.

[Fektoer]

That would solve the problem that you "can't" use your laptop anymore even when it's not docked. When you have it docked, you still have the same problem. Yes it's would help a bit but there's a reason i need the dock (ethernet mainly).

Thanks for the reply though, the load would make more sense if that's true. Not to say i understand -why- it would have to emulate anything. It only has to pass through the signal received from the hdmi cable, done. Let my laptop handle all the graphical heavylifting.

[Kushan]

Thanks for the reply though, the load would make more sense if that's true. Not to say i understand -why- it would have to emulate anything. It only has to pass through the signal received from the hdmi cable, done. Let my laptop handle all the graphical heavylifting.

I don't know which dock you're using, but the one I have is connected with a single USB cable - not the HDMI port of my laptop. While I agree that it should be just passing through the data from the graphics card, I'm not sure how much "access" they have to that and there will definitely be a delay between grabbing the graphics chip's framebuffer and the displaylink one. It also has to compress that into a format compatible with the decoder inside the dock itself (I doubt it's a raw RGB stream or anything similar, especially considering that it can support multiple displays, ethernet and USB - not much bandwidth to spare, even on USB3, let alone USB2),which again will have an impact.

I think that much we all accept though, it's the fact that it's outright incompatible with some software that we have issues with. That and the fact that they just don't want to respond.

[Fektoer]

Fair enough, i was a bit too enthusiastic with my response. Mine is connected with a single usb cable too. So yes, it might not be as easy as a simple throughput.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&sku=332-0446

Going by the description of the product you would assume it could handle an HD display with less problems. Especially since it's advertised as being able to connect two displays at once. I don't wanna know what it would do to my cpu if i would have 2 1920x1080 displays in extended setup...

And yes, i would accept a bit of slowdown. But i won't accept incompatibility with software or issues like persistent fps drops. Especially for the price they come at.

[Kushan]

Fair enough, i was a bit too enthusiastic with my response. Mine is connected with a single usb cable too. So yes, it might not be as easy as a simple throughput.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&sku=332-0446

Going by the description of the product you would assume it could handle an HD display with less problems. Especially since it's advertised as being able to connect two displays at once. I don't wanna know what it would do to my cpu if i would have 2 1920x1080 displays in extended setup...

And yes, i would accept a bit of slowdown. But i won't accept incompatibility with software or issues like persistent fps drops. Especially for the price they come at.

I completely agree with you, the compatibility issues are indeed a problem and even if they can't fix it, they need to be more up front about it.

Interestingly, I don't actually see large CPU spikes on my setup and I am running 2x 1080p monitors

[Fektoer]

Weird. No idea what causes it then. What threw me for a loop and nearly made me return my laptop since i thought it had faulty hardware, was the fact that during my fps drops none of my performance meters would indicate a problem. I could see the displaymanager service hogging up a lot of cpu power, but no spike or anything that would indicate a performance loss. The displaymanager service would hog up nearly the same amount of cpu percentage when the laptop was performing fine.

[Kushan]

Weird. No idea what causes it then. What threw me for a loop and nearly made me return my laptop since i thought it had faulty hardware, was the fact that during my fps drops none of my performance meters would indicate a problem. I could see the displaymanager service hogging up a lot of cpu power, but no spike or anything that would indicate a performance loss. The displaymanager service would hog up nearly the same amount of cpu percentage when the laptop was performing fine.

I wish I could offer more insight on what's causing that. For such a detrimental but sporadic performance drop, I can only presume it's a race condition, something is blocking something else that's time sensitive, likely stalling the graphics card. It might not even be the displaylink software, though obviously that's the likely culprit.

[Fektoer]

This weekend will probably establish that when i put in some more hours behind my laptop. As it stands, removing the drivers instantly fixed the directx problems of aforementioned games and gave a noticable gfx improvement on games like Diablo 3. So far i have had no fps drops anymore but then again, i went without fps drops for a few days before (only to have it drop every 15 min or so the days after). So i'm hopeful.

At first i thought it was a problem concerning windows 8.1 and external gpus. A blizzard representative said that they had problems before with applications switching to the internal gpu instead of using the more powerful external gpu using windows 8.1 and geforce drivers. However, it happens with every application (not only blizzard applications), different gfx drivers and different OS (windows 7).

[Trekari]

Displaylink,

Would you mind explaining the customer service you believe you're providing with this issue STILL outstanding?

Just tried to play Skyrim...kept crashing at startup. Removed displaylink drivers, which means no DCS A-10C or Falcon BMS 4, and Skyrim magically works again.


Seriously, this is beyond absurd to not be capable or willing to fix this problem for your users, and I'll be making sure my flight sim buddies know about it.

[Trekari]

I've begun my anti-displaylink campaign, and it's going to continue on Facebook, Twitter, and my flight sim forums until you resolve this issue.

Your company has NO excuse for this. Honestly this is worse support than even Saitek or EA provides, and those companies are sh**.

[Trekari]

Displaylink,

Any update on your "WeDoNotCareAboutProblemsOurCustomersHave-itis?"

[valeryan]

Wow, This thread has been around for 2 years detailing this error. I work for a game studio and we recently purchased about 6 of these to test and see if they would be useful to our company. Its nice that not only does our game crash in full-screen mode when using these docks but now the game crashes when the dock is not connected. Way to go guys. I work with hundreds of software developers and to have such a horrible bug in our software for over 2 years would not be acceptable on any level. Especial a personal developer level. I know I wouldn't like looking at myself in the mirror. You know I wouldn't mind games not working with your driver when its connected but to screw up games all the time on a system with this software is unacceptable. You should all be stripped of your CS degrees and go back to college for a liberal arts degree.

Anyway, We have a massive community of players that enjoy our game and we have decided to detail our experiences with displaylink enabled equipment in our dev blog and our community forum. I am sure our players will love to hear how they can run out and get equipment using your software and completely gut their ability to play our game and pretty much every other game on the market. We will be making sure they know to avoid products using your software.

Thanks

[Wim]

This thread contains lots of issues on games now, some of which were bugs that have been fixed in more recent releases and some that still exist.

We are aware of problems with some games in full screen mode, but there is no easy fix for these. One of the main problems is that games tend to use the graphics hardware directly in full screen mode, bypassing Desktop Window Manager (DWM). However this means that they bypass the DisplayLink virtual graphics driver and get confused when they try to use the graphics hardware and find DisplayLink also using the primary graphics card to render additional screens.

This is only in full screen mode, as in windowed mode the game goes through DWM and should function correctly. This is why we recommend running games in windowed mode.

We'd be happy to work with game developers to find a solution to supporting games in full screen, but we cannot do this without the support of the game engine developers. If you are a developer who could help with this, please contact us through "Ask a Question (http://displaylink.com/support/ask_question.php)" on our website, so we can start a dialogue.

Wim

[valeryan]

I am fine with your software causing games to have to run in windowed mode when the dock is hooked up. Its the fact that when I take my laptop home and set at my desk and try to launch a game I get the same error. Your software should not effect the normal operation of the system. I have tried stopping the service DisplayLinkManager and removing the processes for DisplayLinkUI.exe, and DisplayLinkuserAgent.exe from memory. But unless I uninstall your software, gaming is no dice. So maybe you can tell me what else I need to kill so I can build me a nice "I want to play games script" that kills everything I need to enjoy a nice game at home.

And as to any game studio developers trying to work with you... I am sorry I wish we could spare the time to help. We can't and most of the interaction with the system itself is handled by the engine. For example we used the unreal engine. It handles almost all hardware level access. You would need to talk with the engine developers to get anywhere with that line.


Thanks for the reply,

So, we would be mostly happy If we could play our other games at home without having to uninstall the software every night. We actually don't get to set around at work and play games all day.

[Wim]

OK. The problem is that to pull our driver out of the way, we need to restart the Windows graphics sub system. Normally Windows wants to reboot when the graphics sub system restarts. So you would still need to reboot before playing games.

Would this be OK? I think it gets more complex to find a way of pulling our driver out of the way without a reboot. At least you would not have to uninstall our software every time.

Wim

[valeryan]

I am ok with a reboot vs uninstalling and every night and re-installing in the morning. I can actually see incorporating the procedure to makes games playable into my work flow when I shutdown in the evening. I would find this to be a usable workaround. What would I need to do?

[Trekari]

OK. The problem is that to pull our driver out of the way, we need to restart the Windows graphics sub system. Normally Windows wants to reboot when the graphics sub system restarts. So you would still need to reboot before playing games.

Would this be OK? I think it gets more complex to find a way of pulling our driver out of the way without a reboot. At least you would not have to uninstall our software every time.

Wim

ANY solution would be better than having to completely uninstall your drivers to play games such as Skyrim.

[R4wizard]

Hey Guys,
Just made an account to report my findings after a friend who works in your IT department informed me that some of my issues may have been caused by my DL device.

I tried to start developing a game using the Unreal Engine 4, however the 'launcher' to download the engine wouldn't even open and just hung using massive amounts of CPU. I assumed this issue was something to do with my slightly older hardware or the fact im using an APU, so I dismissed it and moved on.

I have now tried the following things and managed to get it to work:

I stopped the DL service, still didn't work.
I removed the DL device from my USB port, still didn't work.
I uninstalled the DL drivers using the uninstall tool and now the launcher works fine!

I would be happy to see a fix for this, and/or a method for disabling the driver quickly as I quite enjoy using my USB monitor but I also enjoy playing and making games! Let me know if there is any further information I can provide.

You can download the unreal engine 4 launcher from: https://www.unrealengine.com (you do not need to pay to download the launcher, only to login, but you can't get as far as to login with a DL monitor attached, and the UE logs are useless for debugging)

All the best guys and good luck with the fix!

(P.S. I have reported this as a bug with UE4 too: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/56042/unreal-engine-launcher-will-not-launchshow.html)

[N_Spaceman]

I'm having exactly the same issue and thought I would add my $0.02, having just found this forum after dealing with this problem for the past month or two. I bought a Targus ACP71USZ for my Ivy Bridge laptop around May, and have been having problems w/ fullscreen gaming since then, but to be honest I didn't do much PC gaming previously (was mostly on PS3) and didn't put 2 and 2 together that it was the dock drivers causing the issue.

However, today I just happened to chuck a SSD into my laptop as well, and reinstalled the OS and all software from scratch. As it happened, the DisplayLink driver was just about the very last thing to go on. Steam, conversely, was put on this morning, and I checked each of my 12 games earlier, as I installed them, verifying that each and every one was working fine in full screen condition (I even made a sys restore point at that juncture as I was so tickled to have apparently resolved the problem). However, immediately following the install of the latest DL driver (7.6.5563), all of the games I'd had trouble with immediately broke again.

Not that it really matters, obviously a ton of people are having exactly this issue, but here's my set up:

Windows 7 Home Premium (newly installed, fully updated)
Sony SVS151190X
Newest Intel HD4000 driver (10.18.10.3621)
Newest nVidia GeForce GT 640M LE driver (9.18.13.4043)
Newest Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible HC driver (1.0.10.255)
Newest Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset HC driver (10.0.13.0)
Newest version of GeForce experience, etc., etc., etc.

And the score as to the games:
Unaffected games:
Awesomenauts
Dota 2

Affected games:
Borderlands 2 (not a big deal, can be set to run 1080p borderless window)
Left 4 Dead (ditto)
Left 4 Dead 2 (ditto)
Crusader Kings II (will run FS, but only at greatly reduced refresh rate of 25Hz)
Dungeon Defenders (will NOT run FS no matter the setup, and there is NO option to run borderless window, nor does any 3rd party full-screen wrapping software I can find work with this game; in otherwords, you will be absolutely stuck running it in a standard window if you load DL drivers)
Civ V (like CK2, has refresh rate problems w/ DL drivers installed but can be made to limp along)
The Witcher 1 + 2 (appear to have 1 working for now; 2 will only run after alt-tabbing over to close the Direct3D error message, and this will leave the taskbar on the screen over the bottom of your game for the rest of the session).

As with everyone else, this happens regardless of whether the machine is plugged into the dock or if a monitor is attached directly via HDMI or VGA, or even if the laptop is just outputting to its own built-in 1080p screen.

It's not the end of the world, the dock is still pretty useful to me (though not as useful as Sony simple separating the HDMI and VGA ports by another half-inch so I could plug in both outputs simultaneously might have been) and the -window -noborder switch is a great workaround for those games where it can be implemented, but it IS a drag not to be able to properly play one game (Dungeon Defenders) at all, and have to have to use obnoxious settings w/ three others (CK2, Civ 5, Witcher 2).

[Trekari]

Over a month again with no progress...

[Cyric]

Football Manager 2014 from EA

Divinity Original Sin - which may be a general Steam Problem or not.

This really sucks. It makes the docking station kind of redundant. :mad:

[Wim]

Hi All

We have created a tool that will enable you to disable the DisplayLink graphics drivers, which should work around the problems with games. You will need to reboot after an enable or disable, but should be better than having to install/uninstall.

The tool is linked off this knowledgebase article:

http://kb.displaylink.com/368

Thanks

Wim

[aprimatic]

Thank you very much for this new utility.

I works very well for me !

[Vald]

It's still present in 7.7.

No surprise.

Why do I even bother hoping that each new version will fix a critical bug that has existed for at least 2 years now?

[TallonIV123]

Is there any news on a fix for this?

If it helps at all, right clicking any game and putting it in compatibility mode (for any operating system) seems to fix most games. I have yet to come across one that this doesn't work for and i've played hundreds of different games. Would be really nice to not have to do this everytime I install a game though (especially since I have to navigate to the steam folder and do it to the game executable for all steam games).