It’s a commonly known fact that gaming consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox simply don’t have the ability to swap graphics cards like a computer can. Which I know fans of the consoles would love to happen, it just isn’t in the cards. But what I told you that a company is claiming they can connect a video processor to their consoles to help provide a better visual?
That’s exactly what Marseille, the creator of mCables and mClassic, is claiming they are able to do. According to the information that I was sent, they have a dongle that sits between the console and TV/Monitor, called the mClassic.
Render of the mClassic
While this unit won’t replace the existing GPU in a console, what it allegedly will do is help clean up the signal that is sent from the console. Similar to how anti-aliasing works, the mClassic will redraw the pixels that are pushed out and will clean them up. Essentially smoothing out the jagged edges or jaggies that can result in undesired images. Apparently, it will be a low lag conversion, with processing taking less than 1ms. That’s really interesting if it can smooth edges will not introducing noticeable lag. This works all the way up to a 4K resolution.
Now, if this seems familiar, it should. As sounds like another Marseilli product, the mCables. Except the mClassic has been created specifically with consoles in mind. To use the dongle, you’ll need to activate it via a toggle switch, which will enable or disable the scaling function. These are being designed to work with the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Switch, as well as older consoles such as the Dreamcast and Gamecube. I like the idea of them working on the older consoles, as I’ve seen scalers work for those consoles in the past, with more expensive solutions powering that.
As of now, Marseille isn’t selling these dongles but are planning on starting a Kickstarter for them soon. You can sign up over at Marseille’s website to get notified when the Kickstarter campaign will begin. The mClassic will be priced at $99, however, backers will be able to get them at a discount for just $79.
I’ll give it to Marseille, I’ve heard some good things about their mCables. I haven’t checked out a pair for myself due to the pricing and not feeling the upgrade justified the pricing. However, with the mClassic it does seem like this is a viable solution and we’ll be looking into trying out one for ourselves once they’re available.
Lastly, I know this reads as an ad, but it isn’t. As a techie, I love checking out new technology. So if it’s appealing to me, I’m gonna talk about it. Just a friendly FYI.
