@lanodan @kaia @arichtman
This setup used to work fine with MacBook Pros — not with Airs, their integrated GPUs were never powerful enough for three displays, my MBP was switching to discrete GPU when connected to external displays whether I want it or not.
There were also a few tricks to open the laptop, but keep the built-in panel off — for better cooling of course, not for using the built-in trackpad — who the fuck even does it this way? This dude is just sick! 🤮
So of course you need a set of external peripherals — it's exactly how it was always done, what he's trying to do is an extremely narrow use case. And it's not about Apple not letting you do something, I think they are pushing this thing to its limits to let you do even that — MacBook Air was always the cheapes lower-end model, its GPU was never capable of driving three displays and I'm sure nothing changed when they switched to their own SoCs. It's just like with phones — flagships allow you to connect an external display and use it on its own, midrangers only allow mirroring, they aren't powerful enough for two separate displays 🤷