Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
Bel spent a few hours playing the Avengers Beta and has some things to say about it. There are what he feels to be fundamental problems with the game that are not likely fixable before the September 4th launch. Kodra gives some recommendations for a few Sudoku games that allow you to play some of those interesting edge case games. We pick up a conversation from last week and talked about Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition and more directly the update cycle for physical games and how it doesn’t exactly work. Warframe announced a major change at Virtual TennoCon and we talk about the Helminth and how it is going to shake up the meta. Finally Bel talks quickly about the Tony Hawk Pro Skater Warehouse Demo and how the game feels exceptionally good.
The mClassic external graphics processor by Marseille Inc.
Hey Friends! Sometimes I do things that make little to no sense and this mornings post is going to be one of them. I write about them because they can serve as a lesson for others, and occasionally they work out fairly well. You may or may not know what the mCable or the mClassic are, because you may not run in the same informational circles that I do. However what it promises is a magical dongle that upscales a video signal being passed through the device and attempts to improve the image quality in the process. This device normally retails for $100, but I managed to find it on sale for $80 a few months back and which piqued my interest enough to make a purchase. Again… I do dumb things sometimes so you don’t have to.
mClassic scaling chart
A lot of the press surrounding the device claimed that it could take a 720p input signal and scale it up to 4k, and in theory that is a thing that is within the realm of possibilities but you have a lot of caveats. So if that 720p signal is only 30 fps then sure enough you can get a 30 fps 2160p aka 4k signal out of it… pending you are using cables that support HDMI 1.4 and that all of the devices in the chain also support HDMI 1.4. If you have a input signal running at 60 fps… the highest thing you can get out of it is 1440p, which is very rarely supported by televisions and as a result you get 1080p instead. So the scaling seems to work but only in the most optimal of conditions and only if you hold your mouth just right.
Digital Foundry review of the mClassic
So something you have to understand before we get into this… I had watched a number of reviews on this product… the vast majority reported minimal improvements. Yet I still do this thing, in part because the Nintendo Switch looks awful on a 4k television, and anything to clean up the image would be a great improvement. I have a nonsense setup where everything pipes into a very nice 8 port HDMI switch, then goes into my Elgato Pro video card which in itself is only capable of capturing a 1080p image, but the pass through port is capable of passing along a 2160p signal just fine. Originally I had the mClassic in line so that it was processing every signal passing through the HDMI switch, but the results were not amazing.
Modern Vintage Gamer review of mClassic
It seemed to actually make a lot of my experience with the PS4 considerably worse. One example that I sadly don’t have video evidence of is on the FF7 Remaster, the chain link fence at the train station was reduced to just a grid of shiny points with most of the wire itself being smoothed out of existence. On the PS3, Xbox 360 and Xbox One it seemed to make absolutely no difference at all. I ran numerous tests, not really seeing any perceivable benefit. Where I did see benefit however is on the Nintendo Switch, which seemed to have a decently improved image. The annoying part about the cable is that it requires a separate usb power connection, and since it connects to the console and not the television… you can’t simply do the reach around to the USB trick easily. I decided to remove it from my entire set up and instead connect it straight to the Switch dock, where I thankfully still had free USB ports.
The core challenge I have had with this device is that the benefits are subtle. So much so that I am never quite certain that I am actually seeing any tangible benefit and are instead just WANTING to see a benefit thanks to spending $80 on it. As a result I devised a test, which is nowhere near as expansive as some of the reviewers I have already linked above. I have my Switch running through my Elgato capture card, which in theory is receiving the full benefit of all of the image processing. At the same time if I take a screenshot on the Switch itself, it has no idea that the mClassic exists and takes an image of what the hardware is actually producing. So yesterday I did the very fiddly method of taking a screenshot on the console while at the same time hitting my capture button on the PC, and then merging the two images to try and discern if I was actually seeing a difference. Today we are going to go over the results.
Diablo III: Eternal Collection on Nintendo Switch
The first game I tried this on was Diablo III, which looks absolutely horrible in docked mode on a 2160p display. The methodology I used was to drag both images into photoshop, layer them on top of each other, and then slice down through the layer at key points trying to get some side by side comparisons. First off like I said the difference is subtle, but in this example it is absolutely there. The image coming out of the mClassic appears more vibrant and sharp and seems to refine the muddy textures. One of the big places I notice this is in the Blacksmith’s stand where the mClassic absolutely appears to be improving the texture quality. Another place that I found surprising was just how much it seems to be improving the text. Is it $80 worth of improvement? I am not sure… but it does seem to be making a difference.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch
Once again the image here for Breath of the Wild appears more vibrant. This is going to be a theme for most of the comparisons in that when you look at the original it almost seems like there is a haze on it. The biggest place where I notice a difference is in the grass texture, which seems to be significantly more defined on the signal coming from the mClassic. Once again it also seems to be sharpening up the HUD elements which is nice.
Monster Hunter Generations X on Nintendo Switch
I opted to test out Monster Hunter Generations X in part because it is a game that is already extremely vibrant. The end result almost seems over-saturated to the point of starting to lose a bit of detail in the shadows. The textures are absolutely improved as is the overall quality of the models. I did a slice on my character to show the difference and you can similarly compare the two palicos.
Astral Chain on Nintendo Switch
I wanted to try out some overly dark games and opted first for Astral Chain. Similar to Monster Hunter it seems to increase what is already going on with the game. So to me it seems like it is actually darkening much of the game and pushing away a lot of the subtle mid tones. The thing that I find most interesting is how it seems to almost remove the glowing effect on my character’s eyes. Just like the other examples it does a good job of sharpening textures so they feel like they have more depth, but I am not sure about the overall experience.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Nintendo Switch
Finally I wanted to test this out on a fairly dark 2D game, and as a result I went with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. This is the example that I see the least difference in. There is a bit of sharpening to the textures but it is extremely subtle. Additionally there seems to be an improvement in vibrancy, but it mostly just has the effect of darkening the image slightly.
The mClassic external graphics processor by Marseille Inc.
So in the end… I am still deeply torn about the actual benefit of this device. I believe that it is in fact doing something, but I am not sure if the something that it is doing is worth the price tag. The part of it that is being touted the hardest is the promise of taking a 720p or 1080p signal and turning it magically into 2160p for your shiny new 4k television. Yes it does this thing, but it feels like there is a mountain of legal small print that comes with it and the understanding that it only does this in the most specific of circumstances. The only system that I saw a visible improvement with was the Nintendo Switch, and even there you can see by the examples I have provided that it is subtle.
So in the end… would I recommend this product to anyone for the price point? Probably not. Am I disappointed that I purchased it? Not really, because it does make some improvement to the worst offender on my television and I am fine I guess knowing that. Like I said I had watched a dozen or so reviews on this product before purchasing, so I knew what I was getting into. The claim the device makes is tantalizing, but unfortunately in my experience not nearly as magical as it sounds.
Good morning friends. I am still very much not feeling amazing, but I still largely think it is allergies. Ragweed has always been one of my worst issues and we are officially in the season when that starts to give me trouble. I am still taking my temperature daily just to make sure it isn’t something more serious, and I am also distancing myself from folks just in case. Seeing as I don’t have much in the way of burning issues that I feel like I need to discuss with you all, I figured I would spend this morning giving a bit of an update on my Retro Freak console experience.
If you want more information about the whole thing and why I wound up getting one you can check out the original post I made a few weeks back. For reference this is the specific bundle that I ordered from Play Asia as it is a Japanese import. I’ve now lived with the console for a number of weeks and feel like I have a bit better of an understanding of the strong points and the weak points. The strong bits are obviously that you can play a whole bunch of systems on a single console, and also dump those games to an SD Card so you don’t have to have the cartridge handy in order to play it. This also means that you can load up the SD Card with roms from other sources and it will work just fine as well.
One of the biggest issues that I have run into is the fact that not all games are going to play perfectly. The problem that I am encountering for example with Contra III The Alien Wars is at the end of stage 4 when you fight the flying artillery ship “Dodriguez”, at the end of the battle the screen just hard locks. I am not sure if it is a specific issue with the rom image that I am using, so I am exploring that possibility. The other possibility is that the game is just doing something that the emulator the Retro Freak is using cannot support. I know there are some issues with this game specifically on emulators, but most of it was surrounding the fire effects early on in the levels.
Another issue I have run into is that wireless controllers that CAN be used over USB seem to have some issues with the console. For starters the controller that the unit ships with was not amazing, and since then I have been trying to settle on a controller that I liked the most and that would support the most titles. I had ordered this Bluetooth Sega Saturn controller and was having a great time with it for a few days. Then I noticed that the console itself was overheating significantly… to the point of locking up completely.
My working theory is that the power draw of this controller from the console is just too much. I might end up getting a powered hub and try seeing if that helps, since in theory the controller would be drawing power from the hub and not the console itself. The sad part about this is that I really like the layout of a saturn controller, and this one in particular had 10 mappable buttons which came in extremely handy. I have another Sega Saturn USB controller, but I am guessing it is X Input because I cannot get it to work with the console in any fashion.
This has lead me to fall back on the 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ which is in itself a phenomenal controller. The only real negative is the fact that it doesn’t have six face buttons, which means I am not likely going to be playing any fighting games on it. However that said… in truth I was probably not really likely to play many fighting games in the first place since why bother with a console port of Street Fighter 2 when I could just be playing the original Arcade game through Mame. This controller still has some issues, like for some reason the console will not boot with it connected. I am not sure if this is a power draw issue, because it does not cause the same overheating issues but stalls out on the loading screen while it is connected.
All of this said… I have figured out what I can and cannot do with the Retro Freak and am still loving having easy access to all of these games. Sure I could just be running them from Retro Arch, but there is something special about using them with a console that I can’t quantify. The only negative of this experiment is that I find myself wanting to dig out all of my old consoles and get them up and running again. There are a bunch of mods for the Dreamcast and the Neo Geo CD that I am starting to look into that would replace the CD mechanisms with SD Card emulators. I’ve opened up a vault of memories and I am sorta afraid I am going down this weird path now.
At the end of the day… all I know for certain is that I will probably always use Scanlines because it just makes the games feel more like I remember them.
Good morning friends. I still mostly feel horrible, but less horrible enough that I am going to attempt doing work and such. Yesterday late in the day I did in fact make a blog post happen, in part because I wanted to get the review of something new out there as soon as possible. On the gaming front I am still very much living my life in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Right now I have paused the main story a bit to catch up on side quests, and figured it was a reasonable time to do the expansion content, or at least the bulk of it.
When I first played HZD on the PlayStation 4, I beat the game at level 39. As of last night I dinged 45 and have so much more content left to go. The game in theory caps out level wise at 60, but supposedly progression keeps on trucking after that if things I have read are to be believed. It will be interesting to see exactly where I wind up upon finishing the story. The key difference is I seem to be killing a lot more random stuff in the world just because I can and it is fun to watch dinobots explode.
I am pretty sure my favorite part of Horizon Zero Dawn though is finding and mounting the Tallneck in a given region. In the frigid north you have an interesting side quest related to saving one, and it might be my new favorite part of the game. These tall friends are the best and I want them to live happy lives. Also the north is absolutely visually stunning… which causes me to stop and take photos of this sweet sweet friend lumbering around happily. I am probably weird to be personifying the robots so hard but whatever… this one has never tried to kill me.
Another weird thing that I apparently like doing… is dressing appropriately for whatever climate I am in? I mean the armor has no impact on your surroundings, but I find myself wearing Banuk armor when I am in the north and Carja armor when I am in the south because apparently I don’t want Aloy to get hot/cold. It legitimately makes next to no difference what type of armor I am wearing, because I can move the mods around at will, but for some reason it makes a significant difference to me as the player. The weird part is that I have never worried about dressing appropriate to the climate before in a game, but for whatever reason I just do so instinctively here.
The only problem with playing a single player game is that more or less I don’t have a lot that is terribly interesting to talk about, that is also not deeply spoilerific. Yes this game is now three years old at this point, but for the PC crew it is brand new and I don’t want to do anything that would heavily damage the impact of the story beats. So instead you are probably going to get a continued sequence of content with me posting pretty pictures and talking about largely unimportant things until I get Horizon Zero Dawn out of my system again. I think I might be entering another sequence of single player titles, because I believe more than likely I will be playing Ghosts of Tsushima after this.
