First Gaming PC + MacBook Pro.... L1T KVM for the win?

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Hello.

I recently built my first gaming PC & I’d like a way to quickly switch a single 4K monitor (along with input devices) between the new PC and my MacBook Pro 2021, 16" M1 Pro.

My requirements are:

  1. Switching should be fast and painless. No more than 3 seconds
  2. MacBook should not sleep or disconnect while PC is active, unless I’ve configured it to do so.
  3. System supports 4K @ 120Hz and Gsync for gaming

If I’ve done my research correctly, I think I can accomplish this with a L1T KVM. Here is my proposed setup, with questions at the bottom

My existing components

  • Screen: HP Z27 (4K @ 60Hz). Plan to replace this with 4K Gsync monitor
  • PC 1: 2021 Macbook Pro 16" M1 Pro
    • PC 2: Windows 11. RTX 4070, i5 13600K, Z790 UD AC
  • Dock: CalDigit TS4
  • HID: Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard (5KV-00001)
  • HID: Logitech MX Master (910-004337)
  • Some other peripherals like Yubikey, webcam, but these are Mac only & don’t need to be shared with PC

Things I need to buy or do, based on my current understanding:

  • purchase L1T’s “Single Monitor - Two Computer” KVM:
  • KVM → monitor with DP 1.4
  • PC → KVM with DP 1.4 + USB A-B* (or C if using 10gpbs KVM)
  • TS4 dock → KVM with DP 1.4 + USB A-B cable* (or C)
  • Mac already connected to TS4 with Thunderbolt 4
  • HID peripherals → KVM
  • use Club3d cables for everything + keep the lengths short

Questions I have

  1. Some vendors make a big stink about EDID emulation. Level1Techs does not support EDID. If I believe those other vendors, EDID seems required to meet my first requirement of “fast and painless switching”. But it fails my third requirement as it does not support Gsync. Moreover I’ve read that EDID fails to deliver on its promises anyway. Or at least as implemented by XYZ vendor. So, should I care about EDID? And if I opt for L1T KVM without EDID, does it come with tradeoffs I should be aware of?

  2. How reliable are USB dongles when plugged into the back of L1T KVM? Or should I plan to use hard wired HID. For context I can’t use dongles on my TS4 because there is too much 2.4 GHz interference.

  3. Lastly, is it even reasonable to expect a glitch-free, near-instantaneous, one-button switching experience… between Mac and PC… with no wake/sleep issues? Or am I being overly optimistic, and I should prepare to encounter at least some bugs even in the best case scenario (Especially with the MacBook)?

Cheers and thank you for your time

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The EDID emulator box that is sold on the L1 store seems to work well with my Freesync display. I can’t speak for Gsync though.

Honestly, there are ways to configure the laptop to not sleep when connected to the dock and the KVM is not on that input. I would recommend giving that a go before buying the EDID box.

I’ve had good results with USB dongles. There are two types of USB on the KVM. First type is HID, which intercepts the keyboard inputs and reads the hotkeys. The second is just a USB hub with switching hardware to choose which machine it goes to. I’ve had good results with a logitech unifying receiver on both the normal USB and the HID ports. Though, I currently use wired. (personal preferences for input devices, nothing about the logitech dongle)

near-instantaneous is going to heavily depend on your monitor. My LG display is fairly quick, 3-4 seconds from button press to display lighting up, on my Linux machine. This one doesn’t remove the display when it switches away though, so there’s that to consider. On my M1 macbook, it takes maybe 5-6 seconds for the display to show up, because the macbook removes the display in software.

Are you being too optimistic? I can’t say for sure. If your monitor is quick, you should be within your expected range. If your monitor is not, you’ll need to adjust your expectations. What I’d do to test is unplug the displayport from one of your machines and measure how long it takes to come online when you plug it in. That will give you an idea of what to expect.

General advice for “keep the lengths short” is this: for the displayport plug on your GPU/dock → displayport plug on your monitor run length, you don’t want to exceed 4m. On some docks, (I have a belkin TB3 dock), you need to reduce the run length a bit, give it maybe 1m to the KVM and 2m to the monitor. I’m very happy with my 3m total run length on all my systems, but that’s just my experience.

As for it being glitch free, the early KVMs occasionally had glitches, but the second gen model I have is rock solid. I think once, I’ve had to unplug it and give the whole stack a soft power cycle, but I’ve had this thing since 2021 IIRC, so it’s a VERY reliable piece of kit.

Final thoughts:

Lower your time expectations to ~5 seconds, dependent on the display wake-up time. All other expectations and requirements are reasonable.

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Thanks for the quick reply! This is very helpful. Sounds like I am on the right track

Nice. I’ll see how far I can get with my dongles for now. I’ll likely replace with wired at some point when my current devices wear out. Feels a bit more foolproof.

This makes sense. My current monitor is fairly slow to switch inputs, so of course this will slow things down. Something to consider when I buy a new monitor.

Is this because of your EDID emulator? Or just something that Linux does.

Good to know. I was planning to buy the 3m cables (so 6m total distance) but 2+1 should be pretty easy to accomplish with my setup. I’ll give this a try

Cheers and thanks again for replying

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Certain environments can be configured to not automatically update the display topology. My display management solution doesn’t give a toss about monitors being plugged in or unplugged until I tell it to update. No EDID emulator needed.

2m+1m is probably ideal. I just realized there may be a problem.

2160p@120hz is going to be right on the edge of what’s achievable with DP1.4. Displayport 1.4 has a max data rate of 32.4Gbps. It all boils down to which display you choose. Do you want 10 bit HDR? Are you going for even higher? My recommendation is don’t use HDR and you’ll be good to go. The good thing though, is that gsync doesn’t use any additional bandwidth.

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Awesome thanks for all of your advice. Yes I’m aware 4K @ 120 is basically the bleeding edge of what DP 1.4 supports, and that if I really want high frames I must be prepared to lower the resolution.

I’m considering the Odyssey Neo G8 (4K @ 240Hz) or the Neo G7 (4K @ 165 Hz). I know I won’t be able to run either at max res / max refresh. But 4K resolution is important for my non-gaming tasks, in which 60Hz is fine. And lower resolution is acceptable when I’m gaming and want to take advantage of fast refresh rates.

HDR is not very important to me. This monitor will be in a bright room with lots of sunlight, and I’m not sure how noticeable HDR would even be in that environment. So I am mainly optimizing for screen brightness / glare, in addition to my other requirements.

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Quick follow-up here.

I received the L1T KVM and got everything wired up as described. To any future readers, here again are my components:

Everything is working very nicely! Switching from Mac to PC is very fast < 2 seconds. Going the other way is a bit slower, around 3-5 seconds.

The only snag is my Microsoft wireless keyboard, whose 2.4GHz dongle is plugged into the KVM. It functions perfectly for ~2 minutes after switching, but then my PC no longer recognizes it. When I’m able, I’m going to try a hard-wired keyboard and see if it helps.