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Marseille mCable HDMI Cable with inline anti-aliasing

It's either going to be introducing some blur where it shouldn't or visual artifacts when seeing the game in motion.

I'm keen to see some full size, full res videos of this being used.
 
It's exceedingly unlikely it could be used, but even if it could, there would be absolutely no point.

Post-process AA is basically useless in VR (and detrimental in some ways).

Why is that? Even on a lower resolution VR setup? Say PSVR or a lower end PC setup. I'm sure there's a good reason but I know very little about AA obviously. Over softening of the image comes to mind immediately. But what is the main differences between a native AA solution and post processed AA?
 

Durante

Member
Why is that? Even on a lower resolution VR setup? Say PSVR or a lower end PC setup. I'm sure there's a good reason but I know very little about AA obviously. Over softening of the image comes to mind immediately. But what is the main differences between a native AA solution and post processed AA?
Basically, in current VR, pixels are huge. Artifacts and issues that are negligible on screen can be a huge deal. In particular, image-based ppAA cannot deal with (i) temporal flickering and (ii) sub-pixel AA, while also inadvertently reducing clarity.

And even worse, what's actually transmitted about the cable is a pre-distorted image, so the techniques applied here wouldn't work anyway.
 

TSM

Member
This seems like something that should have been an outboard box that they instead built into an HDMI cable. I suppose that you could just run this off an HDMI switch if you have multiple sources.

Their site lists this as 1080p 120hz, but they also claim this will upscale 24hz content to 4k. Is there some sort of interface? Some of the features seem undesirable for video game usage like noise and artifact reduction.
 

Insaniac

Member
i'll be cautiously optimistic for now, but could be interesting with my Nintendo Switch games which tend to run at 60 FPS but lack any sort of aliasing
 
I'm not seeing for sale on Amazon yet (just the pages) but once it goes up I'll pick up the 6' version and report back on the results. I'm sure DF will on the case pretty quickly though.
 

ShaithEatery

Neo Member
Wait...do we really have people here saying to not trust a PCPer review, even going as far as to imply waiting for a LinusTech video for a more valid opinion is a thing? Does nobody here know who PCPer is? I would trust a review from PCPer WAAAAAAY more than anything Linus does. The lack of faith in a group that has much more thorough and precise testing methods (PCPer has come up with much more accurate ways of benchmarking SSD's, and they're the ones that discovered that some AMD cards were drawing more power through the PCI-e bus than the bus was rated for) is extremely disturbing.
 
Wait...do we really have people here saying to not trust a PCPer review... The lack of faith in a group that has much more thorough and precise testing methods (PCPer has come up with much more accurate ways of benchmarking SSD's, and they're the ones that discovered that some AMD cards were drawing more power through the PCI-e bus than the bus was rated for) is extremely disturbing.

yeah the implication is hilarious. Makes me think people do not follow these things or are just shitposting. Also, didn't they start the FCAT craze with investigations into framepacing / runt frame problems on AMD hardware?
 

butman

Member
It reminded me this

smoove.jpg
 

ShaithEatery

Neo Member
yeah the implication is hilarious. Makes me think people do not follow these things or are just shitposting. Also, didn't they start the FCAT craze with investigations into framepacing / runt frame problems on AMD hardware?

I believe they did, yeah. They're a huge reason why we can actually point to something like frame timing/frame pacing as a measurable thing instead of some people vaguely referencing micro-stuttering as something some people might notice and others not as much.
 

dan2026

Member
I don't understand the technology behind this at all.
It seems amazing and could be incredible for old games with no anti aliasing.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Wait...do we really have people here saying to not trust a PCPer review, even going as far as to imply waiting for a LinusTech video for a more valid opinion is a thing? Does nobody here know who PCPer is? I would trust a review from PCPer WAAAAAAY more than anything Linus does. The lack of faith in a group that has much more thorough and precise testing methods (PCPer has come up with much more accurate ways of benchmarking SSD's, and they're the ones that discovered that some AMD cards were drawing more power through the PCI-e bus than the bus was rated for) is extremely disturbing.

Where are you getting this. Has anybody said anything of the sort in this thread?

Can you point them out? Or is this just some chip on the shoulder you decided to introduce into this thread?
 

tuxfool

Banned

Great. Where do they specifically single out this outlet as not worthy? People are allowed to distrust a review in isolation.
 

ShaithEatery

Neo Member
Great. What do those things have to do with this thread?

The fact that people are calling bullshit on the review basically confirming what the product is doing. I just was so surprised that people were quick to dismiss a site testing this product so quickly, calling for other sources instead. Pretty much just my reaction of shock about people not trusting a credible source who reviewed the product the thread is about.
 

tuxfool

Banned
The fact that people are calling bullshit on the review basically confirming what the product is doing. I just was so surprised that people were quick to dismiss a site testing this product so quickly, calling for other sources instead. Pretty much just my reaction of shock about people not trusting a credible source who reviewed the product the thread is about.

What makes you think people even know this site? People trust what they know, there is no need to be surprised that people don't know a review outlet. Nor do those comments indicate anything other than their own personal evaluation.

Strange and worthy of comment would be for them to say directly that PCper was untrustworthy.
 

Peltz

Member
Hmmm... I wouldn't call this "snake oil", but I also wouldn't say the results are worth the cash given these full res pictures.

I'm more interested in the implication that more devices can be made to do this, especially when scaling from lower resolutions. Not having any control over the effect that is applied to the image (e.g. no options) makes this a "no go" for me.
 

ShaithEatery

Neo Member
What makes you think people even know this site? People trust what they know, there is no need to be surprised that people don't know a review outlet. Nor do those comments indicate anything other than their own personal evaluation.

Strange and worthy of comment would be for them to say directly that PCper was untrustworthy.

I don't think you have to wait for someone to directly say something like that to infer that, at the very least, they don't know who or what something is. My main reason was to hopefully instill trust as to who this reviewer is and that it's not some bs source that could have just been paid to say good things about it. If anything, hopefully people will be able to add PCPer to their trusted list of review sources.
 

GUN-NAC

Member
Wait...do we really have people here saying to not trust a PCPer review, even going as far as to imply waiting for a LinusTech video for a more valid opinion is a thing?

Those comments are mostly following the OP's lead with the "not very in depth" remark. Premium videos, tho.
 

Peltz

Member
I don't think you have to wait for someone to directly say something like that to infer that, at the very least, they don't know who or what something is. My main reason was to hopefully instill trust as to who this reviewer is and that it's not some bs source that could have just been paid to say good things about it. If anything, hopefully people will be able to add PCPer to their trusted list of review sources.

Their review was rather perfunctory.
 

ShaithEatery

Neo Member
Their review was rather perfunctory.

There wasn't too much in the review, sure, but I'm not sure what else they could have done to test the benefits of the cable other than maybe testing more games that have different types of AA available to compare, say, TXAA and MSAA to what the cable is doing. The Hitman screenshots were pretty telling for me; you can see that the cable is actually adding AA to the scene, but comparing the mcable to the SMAA pictures, you can also see that the texture detail doesn't look nearly as blurry for the mcable (focusing on the tree bark specifically).
 
This some crazyiness. Granted it seems ideal only for a certain range of resolutions. I think more mileage would be obtained if there was a 4K equivalent tbh.
 

EvB

Member
That’s pretty cool, I wonder how many games you would actually get good results with, most games had some form of AA and most later gen titles switched to FXAA, so you are not going to want another layer of post on top of that
 

Steejee

Member
Interesting. This is something I tried to use my receiver to do with Wii games that were a bit too jaggy for me. Since the receiver mostly just cared about video its smoothing came out horribly and I turned it off.
 
I've always heard that the difference between HDMI cables is total bullshit, like somebody compared a $1,000 cable from a high-end electronics store with a cable for like 2 bucks from Wish and they were the same quality with no discernible differences.
 

Paragon

Member
Seems like something that might be useful for Nintendo hardware, since their games often do lack any anti-aliasing at all.
Only problem is that it costs $150 rather than say $30-50.

I wonder how well it works at lower resolutions.

yeah the implication is hilarious. Makes me think people do not follow these things or are just shitposting. Also, didn't they start the FCAT craze with investigations into framepacing / runt frame problems on AMD hardware?
They did some great testing / demonstrations of how G-Sync and FreeSync work/differ too, latency testing of SSDs, ping-times between cores on CPUs etc.
PCPer are one of the best tech sites out there.

I've always heard that the difference between HDMI cables is total bullshit, like somebody compared a $1,000 cable from a high-end electronics store with a cable for like 2 bucks from Wish and they were the same quality with no discernible differences.
It is. Either the cable transmits the signal correctly or you get artifacts in the picture, or it cuts out.
Digital Foundry have images showing what those artifacts look like here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-hdmi?page=2
In my experience, the quick way to test an HDMI cable is to view an all-black image and see if any pixels start flashing bright colors at random.

That doesn't apply here though. This is an HDMI cable with a video processor built into it.
 
This is neat. Hardware AA with a cable.

I've always heard that the difference between HDMI cables is total bullshit, like somebody compared a $1,000 cable from a high-end electronics store with a cable for like 2 bucks from Wish and they were the same quality with no discernible differences.

Yes, when a HDMI cable works it just works when it comes to picture signals since it is a series of set standard for a digital signal, with rules to certain resolutions and bandwidths with the type you are getting; HDMI 1.0, 1.4, 2.0 etc.

The difference in this case, unlike all those BS hundred to $1000 cables, is that they essentially put a processing chip that handles the applied AA, hence the need for a USB power source.
 

styl3s

Member
After seeing the linus stuff i would LOVE to see someone do a video on last gen consoles and even before. Gamecube, PS2, Wii w/ adapter and ps3/360. Because i would buy this in a heart beat if it works well with these.
 

Paragon

Member
Here's a link to the Linus Tech Tips video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjJzibFTaqA
The filter doesn't seem particularly temporally stable - though I suppose that's to be expected - and the sharpening seems excessive.
Most of the comparisons from LTT are pitting 720p video with nearest neighbor scaling against the mCable result rather than against a player with high quality upscaling or a renderer like madVR, which is a bit misleading.
If there was an option to disable the sharpening, and it cost a fraction of the price, it seems like it could potentially be good for a Switch, Wii U, or earlier 3D systems via HDMI adapters - but not anything which renders sub-native resolutions and upscales itself.
 
it's so dumb that this is a thing. it must be because of hdcp

in a world that didn't suck, this product would just be a chip that connects to one of the ends that does the AA. and you could use whatever cable you wanted
 
Here's a link to the Linus Tech Tips video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjJzibFTaqA
The filter doesn't seem particularly temporally stable - though I suppose that's to be expected - and the sharpening seems excessive.
Most of the comparisons from LTT are pitting 720p video with nearest neighbor scaling against the mCable result rather than against a player with high quality upscaling or a renderer like madVR, which is a bit misleading.
If there was an option to disable the sharpening, and it cost a fraction of the price, it seems like it could potentially be good for a Switch, Wii U, or earlier 3D systems via HDMI adapters - but not anything which renders sub-native resolutions and upscales itself.

I wonder, if you force a docked switch into 720p, will the 900p games actually render in 720p instead of scaling down?

X360 games from the first few years actually rendered to the resolution you ran in if it was lower than the maximum rendered resolution. Stuff like Saints Row could get a performance boost if you ran in 480p. CoD2 could render to to targets like 800x600 or 1024x768 if you used a VGA cable. Years later the games all rendered to a single resolution and scaled.

I'm guessing you can't force a Switch to render in 720p native if the game runs 900p docked.
 
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