Overview
Can a HDMI cable really improve your image quality?
When we first saw product page for the Marseille mCable Gaming Edition, a wave of skepticism waved across the PC Perspective offices. Initially, an HDMI cable that claims to improve image quality while gaming sounds like the snake oil that "audiophile" companies like AudioQuest have been peddling for years.
However, looking into some of the more technical details offered by Marseille, their claims seemed to be more and more likely. By using a signal processor embedded inside the HDMI connector itself, Marseille appears to be manipulating the video signal to improve quality in ways applicable to gaming. Specifically, their claim of Anti-Aliasing on all video signals has us interested.
So for curiosities sake, we ordered the $150 mCable Gaming Edition and started to do some experimentation.
Even from the initial unboxing, there are some unique aspects to the mCable. First, you might notice that the connectors are labeled with "Source" and "TV." Since the mCable has a signal processor in it, this distinction which is normally meaningless starts to matter a great deal.
Similarly, on the "TV" side, there is a USB cable used to power the signal processing chip. Marseille claims that most modern TV's with USB connections will be able to power the mCable.
While a lot of Marseilles marketing materials are based on upgrading the visual fidelity of console games that don't have adjustable image quality settings, we decided to place our aim on a market segment we are intimately familiar with—PC Gaming. Since we could selectively turn off Anti-Aliasing in a given game, and PC games usually implement several types of AA, it seemed like the most interesting testing methodology.
First up is Hitman (2016). For this test, we are running at 1080P, Very High image quality settings on a GTX 1060.
Click images to view in full-size
From even the initial impression, it's clear that the mCable is indeed doing some image processing. Let's dig deeper into this particular scene.
If you look closely at the outline of the character models on this portion of the screen, you can see that the mCable is, in fact, applying AA to the scene. SMAA-enabled in the game engine seems to have a greater anti-aliasing effect but overall looks less sharp compared to the other options.
In a similar vein, we also tried Rise of the Tomb Raider with the mCable Gaming Edition.
Click images to view in full-size
This time, we traded SMAA for FXAA, which is one of the most common types of AA found in modern games.
Pay attention to both the foliage, as well as the edges of the stone structure in this scene. Here we see the dramatic softening effect that FXAA has on the scene. In the attempt to prevent aliasing on the edges of surfaces, the entire scene loses detail.
Next, we decided to try out a retro title without any AA settings, UT2004.
There is a noticeable difference in image quality between a regular HDMI cable and the Marseille mCable Gaming Edition, as odd as that sounds.
Additionally, we decided to run a couple of quick tests to verify that the mCable wasn't adding any input lag. We connected the mCable to the Leo Bodnar Video Signal Input Latency Tester and then to our Dell WFP3008 display.
Comparing a standard HDMI cable to the mCable, we saw no additional lag introduced by the signal processing.
The Marseille mCable Gaming Edition is a fascinating product. Even in my short time with this product, I have started to think about different possibilities where it may come in handy. For example, the impending release of Nintendo's SNES Classic Edition. With an HDMI input, there's no reason you couldn't pair it with the mCable.
One thing I would like to see is a switch to disable the processing. In its current state, you are stuck with swapping physical cables if you don't like what the processing has done to a given game which is less than ideal. Also, keep in mind that there is no frame scaling ability in the mCable, so if you require the input to be upscaled to the resolution of your given display those duties will still fall on the display hardware.
However, for gamers who often enjoy retro titles, the $150 pricepoint might be worth it to get some new life to the games they know and love.
Just save your money for a
Just save your money for a better pc down the road. 150 here, 150 for mem, hd upgrade 150 … it goes on and on. Been there, done that.
So, they are marketing this
So, they are marketing this for consoles. $150???
Just save that money for a new ps4 or xbox one. If your true “retro” gamer you won’t want better resolution.
Ken, great write up. I am
Ken, great write up. I am normally quick to throw up the BS flag when it comes to HDMI cables, but I watched the video and then read the article.
I do have a question though, which might be on the minds of many readers who use their consoles for both gaming and cinema viewing. For mixed use which cable should be purchased, gaming or cinema? Looking forward to your response! Thanks!
So, you get a monitor that
So, you get a monitor that has 35ms of input lag and a cable that has image processing in it, and magically now the monitor has 26ms of input lag?
Also, where’s the input lag measurement with a normal HDMI cable?
Your input lag metodology is wrong and renders your test as invalid.
Very interesting. reminds me
Very interesting. reminds me of how Microsoft made the smart decision to include a dedicated Anti Aliasing chip in the Xbox 360. I found that, to my eyes, it made most games feel significantly better on my Xbox 360 than on my PS3. I know there are other factors, but even on really great looking games the aliasing present with PS3 always put me off a bit.
Super interested to see this
Super interested to see this on a Nintendo Switch (docked).
Those games are all high contrast and some like Mario Kart at 1080p, Zelda 900p have no AA in them and its really distracting.
For $129 a slightly more gorgeous switch sounds like a steal. Will report back once Amazon gets back in stock so I can return if bad
(oh, if you have a receiver with multiple HDMI out this can solve the problem too -> Program your remote to use HDMI out 2 vs 1 if on SWITCH)
I bought one of these after
I bought one of these after reading about it here and from LTT and it definitely works wonders for some console games like Bloodborne and Nioh; however, the upscaling feature for last gen platforms (360, PS3 @720p), while it does work and provides substantial anti-aliasing, is awfully blurry. You wouldn’t happen to have two of them in series to test for upscaling would you? One for the upscaling and the second to clean up and apply additional sharpening, since it does have a sharpening filter included.
So you are finding at 720p
So you are finding at 720p its not helping or too blurry?
Have you tried any high contrast games?
Really want to try Mario kart. Its sold out everywhere.
Switch + AA would be magic.
It is definitely helping at
It is definitely helping at upscaling older games which are typically 720p or less, some going as low as 500p or so, but the scaling algorithm it uses, even with the added anti aliasing and sharping filter, is quite blurry. Not unusable by any means, but I was interested in using one cable to do the upscaling then a second cable to apply additional sharpening and image cleaning. Spending 250$ on two cables is not that unreasonable if it actually makes last gen titles playable on a 1080p or higher display and it seems like an interesting testing scenario.