#mcable

Nintendo Gamecube (2004)

I’ve been playing around with PS1 games on my old LG 1080p TV using different devices and wanted to do a little write up (keeping it brief but also describing what I saw).  Apologies for no screenshots, but I’m not really set up for it and any pictures I took wouldn’t really convey much.

The reason the PS1 is so interesting to me is because it’s still that early time in 3D graphics as far as hardware, but it lasted long enough to where the developers got really good at attempting realism.  So while simple polygonal games like Spyro the Dragon look good no matter how you scale or filter them, games like Gran Turismo 2 or Need for Speed III either need to be left original or with subtle scanlines.  You can’t just anti-alias or blur your way through these games.  Every little pixel (from the trees to the dirt) has been placed there to resemble reality in a very “crunchy” graphics sort of way.  That’s part of the art and the fun of PS1.  The little system is trying to do the most with what little it has and I want that carried through to me while playing the games.

First of all; here’s my setup:  I use an original PS1 1001 console (the one with the audio jacks in the back).   I use Retro Gaming Cables RGB Scart cables going through a GScartSW (which is an expensive switching device that offers sync regeneration) going out to a scaler.  Here are the setups I tried.

Framemeister - Though I’ve sold my Framemeister recently, I had tried it extensively with the PS1 and used the custom configurations from FirebrandX.  The scaling was right, but didn’t look great on my TV at 5x due to positioning.  And 4X looked really sharp and centered, but it was leaving a lot of unused screen space and I ended up having to use the zoom feature on my TV.  Not ideal for many reasons.  Also, I wanted scanlines and those only looked good at 4X as well.  Plus it’s annoying switching back and forth and having to use the remote to load different profiles (more on my solution for that later on).  Back when this is all we had to use, it was more than acceptable.  But with so many awesome choices these days, it just seems like an over-priced way to go these days (I bought it for $300 and sold it at around $800).

Scart2X - Whenever Mike Chi (RetroTink Store) came out with the Scart2X I jumped at the chance to try it.  The $95-ish device takes RGB Scart input and outputs straight to HDMI.  It doubles 240p input and deinterlaces 480i, so you get a crisp 480p output.  There’s also a button to add either scanlines or smoothing to the image.  I used this setup for a couple of months and I really appreciated the simplicity.  All my 240p consoles look fantastic through this (Genesis, SNES, Sega Saturn, etc).  There were a couple of downsides, however.   The first was that the device doesn’t pass through 480p or anything higher.  It really only accepts 480i and 240p.  Secondly, the scanlines are 100% black lines and this made the image really dark on my TV.  So I ended up not using the device’s scanlines and - instead - using a separate HDMI scanline generator.  This actually helped a lot but not being able to input other sources with higher resolutions kind of bothered me.  As far as being simple to use, this is the ultimate device.  But I just wanted a little more than this had to offer in the end, but I’d have no problems recommending this - especially to those that want an unaltered original experience.

GBS-8200/GBSControl - At this point, I learned about the developments around the GBS-8200 from watching one of RetroRGB’s videos on the subject.  Turned out that I had bought this really cheap ($25-ish) VGA scaler device years back and it sat in a bin in my basement without use (because it didn’t really do what I wanted from it on a VGA monitor).  A developer (ramapcsx2) came up code so that you can use an Arduino to control the GBS-8200 board.  The neat thing is that - once installed - you can control resolution and features through your phone using WiFi.  You can also add a clock generator module to the board to prevent screen tearing (for PS2 games like Dead or Alive 2).  So - after spending maybe $25 in additional parts and conducting a mod that took me an hour and a half to figure out - I had a really nice scaling device that rivaled the Framemeister in features, but also had most of the simplicity of the Scart2X.  Well one extra addition I need was a SCART to VGA converter (which I luckily had).  I can leave it on 1900x1080 output and it automatically adds scanlines (letting you pick the intensity - which I leave on 50%) if the input is 240p (so that higher resolutions just look normal).  Turns out that this is exactly what I wanted all along.  The board also provides adaptive motion deinterlacing (which you can turn off or change to BOB deinterlacing at will).  This ends up looking great on my TV - it’s nice and centered and sharp.  

mCable Classic - I’ve also tried using the mCable Classic (I’ll just refer to it as mCable) with the GBS-8200 to add smoothing since it essentially adds no lag. Since this article is focused on PS1, I’ll just mention what I’ve found it useful for and what I haven’t.  First of all, the mCable doesn’t really do anything at 1080i, so you need to feed it 480p or 720p from the scaler output to see a difference.  And that’s not really convenient (as I’d just prefer to leave thing set as they are), but you could leave the cable hooked up and turned on and just disable the smoothing it offers by upping the resolution from the scaler to it.  Second of all, using scanlines really only works well with 1080p output on the GBS-8200 and the mCable doesn’t really do much with scanlined output going into it.

mCable/GBS-8200 - So here are some games that are use-cases (combining mCable and the GBS-8200):

Tekken 3 - Using smoothing has mixed results here.  Menus look great but the characters in-game looks pretty rough at 480p.  Upping to 720p results in the characters looking decent smoothed (especially when paused), but I’m 50/50 on whether to go this route or just to use the 240p scanlines to be honest.  For simplicity, the mCable isn’t really worth since this isn’t a game you’d play for a long time.

Crash Bandicoot (and Ridge Racer) - This at 480p going into the mCable is probably the best-case scenario.  Game looks smoothed and great.  Simple polygonal 3D games is kind of what smoothing is best used with.  The mCable is especially great because of how it treats defined solid lines.  Scanlines looks great, but if you were going to sit down and beat this game, setting up the mCable would absolutely be worth doing.

Need for Speed III (and other realistic-looking racers) - This is a case where you want to preserve the pixels that were trying to make the streets and scenery look realistic.  In this case, scanlines really beat out the mCable’s smoothing.  With the smoothing (even at 720p), the barely-visible pixelated leaves on the ground just look like a brown smear.  There wasn’t a lot of resolution to go on here and it’s only detrimental to remove it with smoothing.

I recently bought the Marseille Inc. mCable Gaming Edition 3-foot HDMI cable to use with my retrogaming setup.  The cable promises to uprez older-generation game consoles - with the sweet spot being 720p - into 1080p with crisper colors.  It also seems to do some anti-aliasing and filtering (though without making everything blurry).   It’s kind of a miracle that these cables exist at all - given their limited use these days.

This is not a cable you’re going to need with newer consoles that already output 1080p or higher resolutions.  I’m also aware that this is going to do nothing for 16-bit and 8-bit consoles so I just keep those separate as well (RGB going through a Framemeister or an OSSC is the solution there).

I tested this cable with various systems and games and below are my results.  I’m not going to take screenshots or anything for this written review.  I’m just posting my results in case anyone is interested.  I will say up front that if you’re going to use this able with a HDMI switch box, have some way to remove the cable from the pipeline at times (as it will sometimes result in weird artifacting or just no output).  This is kind of annoying; I’m not going to lie.

Please note that my retrogaming setup using an older LG LCD TV that supports 1080p and has pretty low lag from what I’ve experienced.  Newer TVs do their own filtering and add additional lag, so of course your mileage may vary.

Xbox - Most Xbox games are naturally 480p or 720p (or with a modded console you can even disable 1080i) so once you have a way to getting HDMI output, this makes this cable a really good fit.  On top of that, the Pound HDMI cable (from my experience) results in the colors being less vibrant than Component (and maybe the screen a tad bit fuzzy).  So the mCable seemingly solves both problems.  I played some Soul Calibur II (as I’m most familiar with it) and it looks amazing.  I didn’t detect any issues playing that game.  If I had to buy this cable just to play my Xbox (which I truly love) in this manner, I’d be happy with it I guess.  

PS3 - I ran into some issues with the PS3 (which is odd since it’s actually advertised with the mCable on amazon).  I’m actually listing my experience with several games here to document my findings.  The one thing I found off the bat is that any intermediary PS3 menus (i.e. any system prompts about downloading/creating trophies) result in a resolution that the mCable won’t output - resulting in no output going to my TV.  It kind of freaked me out the first time it happened.  I thought I had broken the cable somehow.  Nope.  It was just not carrying through the signal for whatever resolution was being passed to the cable for those menus.

Tekken 3 (PS3, Physical Disc) - The first game I tried was for PS1 (the physical Tekken 3 disc) using the PS3 Super Slim’s built-in emulator.  I tried with and without filtering.  Honestly, it looks pretty horrible.  The cable is trying to accentuate the pixelated nature of the menus and it looks really bad.  The gameplay itself is also a jumbled mess visually - it looks like its interleaving even though the source is 60fps without interleaving.  There’s something detrimental going on with the mCable in this setup.  I’m guessing the frame-rate is key to what’s going on - as Tekken 3 is a 60fps game.  I cannot recommend Mcable for this use.

R4 Ridge Racer (PS3, PSN purchase) - Interestingly, this game looks and plays great - unlike Tekken 3.  I played this on the same Super Slim using a downloaded PSN purchase instead of the physical disc.  Again, I think part of what’s going on is that Tekken outputs at 60fps and maybe this game doesn't.  Anyways, the game looks decent for a PS1 title using these cables.  It’s not quite as great as PS1 emulators make it look, but still a good experience.  So it looks like your mileage may vary based on which game you play.

Darkstalkers Chronicle (PS3 remaster) - Next I tried this Darkstalkers compilation (because 2D is not really what the mCable is made to help with), and it looks really great (no issues there).  I think what’s really happening is that this is outputting at 1080p and the cable had just turned off and is acting as a pass-through.  So the mCable is probably not doing anything.

Daytona USA (PS3 remaster) - Daytona looks amazing using the cables (of course the HD remake on the PS3 looks great anyways).  It seems from what I found online that this game runs in 720p so given the cell-shaded look, this is the poster child for what the MCable can accomplish and I believe it really does make this game look great.

Soul Calibur HD (PS3 remaster) - I also tried Soul Calibur HD and this is where - surprisingly - things really fell apart.  Some of the intermediary menus to the combat apparently output a resolution that the mCable just doesn’t support and it causes my TV not to display anything.  I was not expecting this and it’s really not acceptable.

Xbox 360 - So I tried Soul Calibur HD on my 360 and it works just fine with the mCable.  I just had the demo, but it was nice to see this working correctly.  Again, I think that the cable is just passing through the signal so nothing really more to say here.

Alan Wake (XB360 - Physical Disc) I also tried Alan Wake (a game that outputs in 720p) and that’s where things got really weird.  Part of the Alan Wake game is that there’s this trailing blur behind a lot of the character motion (at least in the part I was playing).  With the mCable, I’d get this little red pixel/dot effect around those cloudy parts.  It’s sort of like the cable (with its edge-detection) can’t work correctly with clouds or fog/blurring effects and just kind of freaks out a little.  It’s not making the game unplayable, but it’s certainly less enjoyable with this cable.  Again, I’d figure out an easy way to remove the 360 from the pipeline in cases like these.

Geometry Wars (XB360 - Digital Purchase) - I also tried Geometry Wars on my 360 and kind of got the same thing where the little energy/wave effect that goes outward from your ship would appear as a red-dot pixelated mess.

Wii - Most games on this console are 480p.  I hooked up an original Wii using one of those generic HDMI plugs on the back through the mCable and I didn’t have any issues while playing Mario Kart Wii.  Everything was vibrant and the lines looked fine.  I believe the mCable is doing its job just fine here.  It’s also true that Mario Kart is probably the best-case scenario (as is any game with that cell-shaded type of look).

Gamecube - I have one of the Insurrection Industries Gamecube HDMI plugs (which I believe outputs 480p) and I tried playing Need for Speed Carbon with the mCable.  Even though the game has blurring effects, the mCable handles it just fine.  Everything looks great for a Gamecube game.  So no complaints here.

Dreamcast - I own a Behar Bros Akura HDMI box (which outputs 480p) and tried playing Soul Calibur and it looks as great as the Soul Calibur HD remake on the PS3.  I did notice that the white on the Dreamcast bios/boot screen looks pink (not sure what’s responsible for that in my setup).  Once in the game, everything looks crisp enough.  I can recommend the cable being used here as well.