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I wish there was a mode that had the processing but didnt mess with the contrast

To prevent darkening on ps3 and 360, you must change colour range to “limited” since it will crush your black levels if the source device is using “full” or extended RGB range.

I’m a very satisfied mclassic owner but I use it mostly to upscale Nintendo Switch to 1440p on my desktop monitor (sitting very close to the screen). I have also used it for Nintendo Wii and PS2 consoles with budget hdmi dongles, which works great for the price (sitting much further away from the screen). I think these are the best use cases for the mclassic. I wouldn’t bother using it with my switch on my living room tv.

I'm a mClassic owner and I would advise everyone to avoid it. - It would make your games a bit less blurrier applying some AA and upscaling (not in a proper way, I'll get into that later) your image, that's all for the pros. Now for the cons, it will (and I swear it) crush the blacks and whites, they advertise it as an enhancement, like "more vivid and colorful image", bullsh*t, this thing can't do a proper scaling and that's why it crush everything. The mClassic will break the contrast on every system you plug it in, on Switch you should turn color range to limited on system settings if you want to have a decent experience, on older systems this will be even worse lacking any settings at all. Finally, not all the TVs can handle the way it works, you will have your screen flickering on and off with the mClassic changing resolutions on the go, and that's another problem, some older games that uses workarounds like dynamic resolutions (re2 on 64) are totally incompatible with this thing, I can't stress it enough, please, do you a favor and save some money, it's not worth a single buck.

In general, the logic used by the mClassic works best when it has access to the output of the console at the native rendering resolution. You can really see this by using it with a GameCube at 480p via a digital out adapter (I know you wanted to use just the mClassic, but the uplift is really worth it in this case). As for the contrast issues, it does appear that the mClassic does occasionally misidentify limited vs full range RGB, and you may have to fiddle with the settings occasionally. This obviously makes it less simple, but that seems to be the only real way to deal with it.

I ordered a mClassic back in 2020 for my Switch and Wii U, and I love it. Xenoblade Chronicles X benefitted a lot. Of course, back then, it didn't come with an extension cable, but I didn't need one since I'd done a portable dock swap. When I bought a Switch OLED, I had to get a cable for it. As far as the X360, it was only applying sharpening and anti-aliasing to the images, which was more noticable in ODST, although a couple of colors looked better in Dead Rising.

I vaguely remember that Microsoft introduced a software upscaler to the 360 at some point, so even though the vast majority of titles run at 720p or lower, the signal received by the mClassic is technically 1080p. My guess is the device sees that and says "Ope. There's nothing to bother with here." Edit: I said "the Microsoft"

The video signals look more colorful depending on the game and in some cases darker because the adapter is not able to process full range RGB but only limited range RGB However, consoles with HDMI usually output full range RGB as standard. If you set the output of the consoles to Limited Range RGB, the signals are no longer dark, but the colors are the same as if you connected them normally. The loading screen on MK8 is what happens when full range RGB comes in but only limited range RGB is processed for context full range RGB = 0-255 limited range RGB = 16-235 With limited range RGB, black is not really black and white is not really white

One thing to note is that the MClassic does not support interlaced resolutions- I think that is why certain systems didn’t look different with it on (because it wasn’t actually on). I discovered this when trying to get it to work with my Wii, and realized it was outputting 480i. When I switched to 480p it was a night and day difference.

I would say that the darkness on the X360 could just be a mismatch between Limited RGB and Full RGB. If you send Limited RGB from the X360, and the mclassic treats that signal as Full RGB, you will get a much darker image.

the LG C3 AI Upscaler does a really great job all by itself with the switch. Glad I decided to fork up the money.

Really clear video + love the Little Big Planet music at 10:54!

With the Mario Kart Loading Screen I have observed something interesting. On KZfaq Desktop with my non-HDR screen I can't see the pattern anyway; but when you move the mouse and the KZfaq control elements display there is a faint black gradient that is displayed that mave the image at the top an bottom borders just dark enough to see the pattern which doesn't happen with the mClassic footage which makes your observations even somewhat reliably confirmable haha

I have only used mine with Nintendo Switch, and I concur the color was a little darker in some cases. Colorful games like Mario stuff seem to benefit the most. I'm playing on a 75" 4k tv, so I can see pixels very well up close, and I have flipped the switch on the mClassic to switch between passthrough and back to see the enhancement. It doesn't always live up to the claims on the box, but it generally looks better and less jaggy, or else it appears about the same. No, it's not as good as a $350 scaler like retrotink 5x, but I'm satisfied with this for Switch use for less than 1/3 of that. I'm sure if one could "tune" it, it would make for better picture quality, but this is effortless without anything to configure. Definitely a different product with a different purpose. Also, I found a neat trick with Shin Megami Tensei V to get better framerate: Set the docked resolution to 720p to get an improved framerate (still dips at times) and the mClassic will clean up the picture enough that (to me) it feels like an upgrade instead of a tradeoff for fps at lower resolution.

The mClassic works extremely well on the output of my HD 1080p reciever. I have all of my retro conoles hooked up to the composit/component inputs on it. I see a huge uplift on my Wii connected to the reciever via component and set to 480p. Especially when playing Gamecube games through it.

ive been using the Mclassic for a while now and I think its great! It works really good for games that have graphics with heavy outlines, like the Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxue remake, but also as said here, is very good at upscaling things from a lower resolution to HD. Very good with my wii games. I also have a TV that takes 1440P signals so I see a difference in most games.

I have used one for years and love it. It really helps if your using a bigger TV.

For the 360 games from what I can tell only the anti aliasing changed, but not for every object. The improvement is most noticeable on hud elements, for example the ammo count in Halo.

What you didn’t really mention outside the darkness are the negative effects. Theres often a bit of a dealy or wave effect. It’s really noticeable on the pillars in journey and in the GTA clip around 17:50

Very comprehensive video, I can see the difference between most of the games, seems like it uses some kind of contrast adaptive sharpening algorithm, and a basic FXAA post-AA style for the jaggies.

Speaking from my own experiences, I will say that the mClassic DOES deliver on an impressive upscaled look for Switch! My setup is unlike most others who play their Switch, being hooked up to something more extreme with my Apple Pro Display XDR and using the recently released Elgato HD 60X hooked up with Elgato's own 4K HDMI cable and sitting a matter of about a meter or two away. (I'm also doing this on my iPad, which is something that, until recently with iPadOS 17 would've been crazy to even think about!)I have my capture settings set to 1440p 60 fps and I can see more detail in the picture with less jagged edges, which makes for an overall cleaner look! Even for games like F Zero 99, things looked a little more vibrant and sharp, despite maintaining SNES graphics to keep that retro feel. I recently just got this for this setup, but I've been an owner of mClassic for a couple of years, using this on my LG 4K OLED display and, even from farther away, I can STILL see an improvement, again maintaining the 1440p output settings. I do agree with Retro Dodo that games like Mario Kart don't see as much of an improvement, but it's still there nonetheless. And, when you do play games that take advantage of the upscaling, the difference justifies the cost! My own take: As mentioned in this review, if you have the TV that can display a 1440p signal or higher, make your Switch look its best and get a taste of what a more powerful Switch Pro-like console would be like until Nintendo finally update their aging current lineup! I can't wait to see how other games look like with this, like Smash and Super Mario RPG!

@retrododo I am interested in the little hdmi device you mentioned that tricks tvs into thinking it is 2k to get a better uplift resolution from the mclassic. my question is what are those devices actually called? i tried to do searches using keywords but the devices i did see i was not quite sure if it did what you did say is possible. any assist is appreciated.

I got an mClassic specifically for the Nintendo Switch and haven't had any issues with it, but it seems to really shine on 1440P displays. Its effects don't seem as noticeable on a 4K TV.

For me, it looks like it’s just blowing out the contrast and sharpness values to make the “image” look more vivid to “show” its doing something, hence losing the Mario kart load screen background. As others have said, you can just adjust the brightness and contrast through the TV itself.

can't wait to stumble across one at a thrift store in 20 years

PS3, XB360, and Switch all still look fabulous to me.

This thing with a ps2 and a specific ps2 adapter, dirty cheap adapter look really good. It looks better than my up converter with deinterlacing. And it’s still better than my up converter plus the mclassic. Extremely surprised by your results with ps2. The ps2 was my best experience. But if you used an up converter that explains it.

These devices are fascinating because they're doing some of what DLSS, FSR, XeSS, and TAAU do. Not to get too off topic/technical. But, I really hope the next Switch's rumored SoC keeps the extra ai cores. Those could provide a huge boon for even better upscaling. Especially >1080p.

One of my friends got a Samsung 4K tv. Am I right this tv ned the EVanlak HDMI EDID Emulator Passthrough to change the resolution to 2K instead for 1080p ? I guess you need a PC monitor to run 2K or have a really old 1440p tv, right ? By the way, pretty awesome video you made here, thank you for that 🙏

What display setting was the Xbox 360 set to? I don’t think you mentioned it in the video. Great work though! :)

With Dead Rising, at 13:55, it definitely looks darker on the left, with the raw footage. Especially if you look at the background. It's also _slightly_ crisper on the right, but not so much that I'd be bothered without it.

I like the “4K gamer pro” better. It doesn’t mess up the contrast and has a sharper look. The con is that there is no anti aliasing on it shows on some games. You can daisy chain it with the mClassic to get an antialiasing but then it gets expensive. Edit: 7:30 most games do not run at 60 fps on switch, the vast majority run at 30 fps ( if even)…

You can lower the resolution on the wii u down to 480p in its settings. Or does that just effect the system menu and games do their own thing regardless of the resolution you set?

I realized something that no matter if it was upscaled or not I usually preferred the one with darker colours even if it wasnt upscaled

I wish they made this with the input and output flipped, so I could plug it into the HDMI port on my tv, and then connect any console into that. It would make it more ideal for switching between consoles and I could even connect a switcher into that and have multiple consoles always connected and ready to go.

looks like it is using contrast sharpening or other filter that uses contrast to detect edges to aply AA... that is why (maybe) it makes the image way darker

14:14 look at the ammo counter on the gun. def getting less jaggies on close up objects. however its very subtle

I need to know, this works with dynamic resolution? This make fps constant on switch? Or at least resolution will be lock at 1080p?

I've had an mClassic for years, My main TV is a 75inch 4k TV and it clears up the jaggies quite a bit. I *highly* recommend getting an EDID spoofer that forces 1440p. It makes quite a bit of difference, and if you're already spending $100ish on the mClassic, the extra $20 for the 1440p EDID spoofer isn't much. A great game to use to see the difference on Switch is, surprisingly, Animal Crossing: New Horizons which is extremely jaggy without it.. I got the mClassic during the animal crossing hayday and it was an immediate benefit. Something else I love about the mClassic is that you can put it on the output of a switcher and it will improve the image quality of everything before the switch. I have a Gamecube -> HDMI , Wii U, Switch, PS3 and a (hacked) SNES Classic hooked up to my mClassic this way. It's also fantastic to hook it up to my 1440p monitor when I'm streaming, and you can put the capture card after the mClassic and stream with less jaggies too!

I just use my gaming computer and emulation these dayz to max out the graphics on any retro/console system there is no beating this method haha.

I'd love a native VGA/component version of the mClassic, would be amazing for so many 480p+ systems and games. Also, I bet this mClassic is amazing for Wii games in 576p ED mode, being upscaled to 1080p.

The manufacturer has videos explaining the limited range and setting the Switch output to 720p or lower. They explain all of this and why it’s necessary. Many people misunderstand this and that’s why they don’t like it. It’s a good device for WiiU and Switch

thanks for your nice loud and clear review Mr.!! :)

The problem with most of these is that you're relying on the games rendering resolution and not the resolution the console is putting out. 720p and below is gonna show a lot more, but the system has to be set to 720p or below. If it's set to 1080p, the rendering resolution doesn't matter AT ALL to the mClassic. It's strange because you even discovered this with the Switch and then went back to having systems set at 1080p

For your 360 comparison was that 1080p vs 1440p for unprocessed vs processing on?

I appreciate the time you've put in making this video though it would have been even better if you also used the 1440 adapter in your conpatisons as that should give further improvement over 1080. The company behind mclassic should actually offer those adapters themselves.

One of my favorite facts about the m classic is that Arabian Prince, founding member of NWA, helped get it to market

You must lower Switch to limited RBG range as well as 720p output in the console settings when the game is not natively 1080p. Mario Odyssey is but many other games like BOTW are not. Let the M Classic do the scaling from 720p to 1080 or 1440p that’s where it’ll show. The MK8D issue you are having are because you have the console on Auto or Full RBG

The raw 1080p image looks better than the 720p mClassic as it's a cleaner, less muddled image as you can see with the lettering on the MKTV truck in the background. The one thing it improves is anti-aliasing, especially to shadows.

i have a wii with the AVE-HDMI KIT installed which adds a mini hdmi to my wii if i got an adapter for it to convert it to a full hdmi do you think this would still work for it? i really wanna buy an mclassic now for my wii and ps3 but if it wont work with my wii kit ill be really bummed

i heard marseille say that its best to use their gaming hdmi cable. have you tried and noticed a dif? they are so expensive but luckily the mclassic is cheaper now.

Bizarrely when viewing this video on KZfaq with my PC my monitor ALSO displayed a plain white background on the Mario Kart 8 loading screen at 6:18 when you were showing the comparison shot from the raw feed! I remembered that HDR was switched off on my Windows 11 HDR settings so I switched it on, replayed that part of the video and I could see the background graphics. I wonder if there's similar processing going on with my display? I'm using a 4k Samsung LU28R550UQRXXU monitor.

The raw input footage for the Switch and PS3 games looks like there's a grey filter put over the top of the image, like the brightness is set just a little too high on the console. Same with the Dreamcast games.

I almost chocked after hearing the calmest person in England tell me this thing cost approximately 400 freddos.

I was wondering how it upscales to 1440p because the monitor I am using for Switch is 1440p and I thought maybe this might bring a bit more clarity by matching the resolution.

I've had mine for a few years now. I put mine on an hdmi switcher for retro systems. I feel like it cleaned up that signal nicely while playing on my 55 inch 4k tv

Peace is priceless Super John Jump.

I may look at this for my Steam Deck, off load the upscaling to this instead of FSR. It may not be any better than FSR, but doing the processing externally may mean a few extra FPS.

Also worth noting the mclassic doesn't actually do any upscaling it adjusts the sharpness and increases the contrast which does make it look less jagged and more contrast feels like more details are available but any modern tv already has these options available in tbe menu.

If you already own any modern LG OLED panels such as CX and above they already have a superior built-in hardware scaler for content below 4k.

@9:47, I'm a bit skeptical that the mClassic is ever receiving a 900p resolution from the Switch. I understand the game might be rendering internally at 900p, but the frame buffer should still be 1080p because it's unlikely a TV, for example, would know what to do with a non standard resolution like a 900p signal.

I run my Switch at 1080p. I have an mClassic with EDID adaptor to force 1440p at all times. The image difference is noticable on all games, including MK8. Must have accessory in my opinion.

I must say I've been pleased with the MClassic, BUT the only issue I have is that if a texture is purposely pixelated or jagged, it tries to blend and smooth it, thus interfering with the effect or making certain small details indistinguishable. This only happens sometimes but worth noting. Not at all a deal breaker, in fact if you're playing Batman Arkham Asylum on PS3 it makes the 720p graphics look much better and the 2D hud elements look much more crisp and graphic like a comic book illustration.

The thing with upscaling 720p is it just has to triple or maybe quadruple each pixel. I forget I don't remember the algorithm off the top of my head. It's one of the 2.; With 1080 -> 4k there's some stretching involved. There's none of that with 720 so you get a much cleaner upscale especially if it's something animated and not live action.. Trying to upscale live action shosws and movies usually doesn't work as well as animation or games

Does that 2k hdmi dongle from Ali express really work in forcing your 4ktv to display the Mclassic in 1440p?

I suggest holding off buying mclassic for the moment. Marseille themselves said new products are coming next year.

On Halo 3 ODST if you look at the yellow line on the edges of the assault rifle you can see that the anti aliasing is way better

Windwaker HD does appear to have one benefit, sharpening through the blur caused by the bloom. Makes the Bloom a little less damaging to the overall image.

What a lot of reviews of this device fail to mention is that it gives the rest results when you have your TV's sharpness settings at zero. For the first two years I used this device, I had my TV's sharpness settings at 20 and was often doubtful as to whether my device was actually doing the job as intended do you how underwhelming a lot of the results were. After setting my TV's sharpness to zero, every game I've played using this device looks better than ever before.

I’m confused, in the video the adapter you show says 2K, but when I click the link it shows me an adapter that says 4K. Which is the proper one to get for 1440p?

I watch you channel in 4K on my Omen 32c curved monitor and I see a huge different on the xBox 360

I’m thankful to be able to just emulate these games in 1440p / 60fps

You can definitely see the lack of detail in the Mario Kart 720 switch up scaled compared to the 1080 switch footage, even if the lines are a little smoother.

The blowing out of the image is due to RGB set to full on Switch, doesn't jibe well with mClassic, set RGB to Limited, and it's fixed

Okay, so the aliasing was worse on the mClassic frame when you were talking about it. Also, you can't do DoF in post-process because it requires depth information and that information is not provided by an HDMI signal. Moreover, it's unlikely that they're doing any kind of intelligent processing in less than 16ms, given that it requires decomposing the image back into digital pixel data, then processing it, then converting it back to HDMI, so there is at least one (probably just one) frame of lag.

Great vid.

Why didn’t you try to third option on the stick for the ps2 and such ? That could work

I use it with my Switch and with my Retrotink 5x for older consoles personally.

.....or you can use Yuze or Ryujinx on a PC and behold the beauty of games with added filters and upscaled to 4K

If you set the Switch to 720p in docked mode you get much more consistent frame rates, and way less slowdown in the Zelda games. It's hard to tell the difference in a static-ish picture when you have the Switch set to 720 with mClassic upscaled to 1080p vs 1080p without it on.

I've never seen a single review that convinced me I need the mClassic, and this one doesn't either, so thank you for the honesty.

what about PS1-PS2 games running on the backward compatible version of PS3?

When they make one that can upscale to 4k, 60fps, I'll be interested

The thing with the switch is most games output at 720p no matter what even docked. Some of the more AAA titles run 1080 like Mario kart 8, smash bros, etc. But kbky a handful compared to most games out there for the switch

For anyone who has an Xbox one x plug your switch into the extra HDMI port at the back of it (HDMI in) then put your Xbox into tv broadcast. That the mode that activate the Extra HDMI. Xbox will take your switch broadcast and out out it into a higher resolution. Texture will be smoother and colours more vibrant.

From my testing the mClassic is designed to accept LIMITED dynamic range, not full RGB.

Original Xbox and Gamecube actually look great with it and I know that falls into the daisy chain of adapters but at the same time I feel most people using a Xbox or Gamecube will have those HDMI adapters anyway in order to play on modern TVs.

not sure about other TVs, but my sony bravia has all this functionality built in

Technically the mClassic is NOT upscaling Mario Odyssey either, as the Switch itself is already doing that. Yes, the game renders at 900p or lower, but the Switch upscales it and sends a 1080p output signal, which is what the mClassic gets. The mClassic is not getting a native 900p signal, thus is NOT upscaling the game. If anything, it's filtering the blurriness that comes with the upscaling that was in effect before the output signal was sent

Do you have footage of Xenoblade games running on the mclassic?

The reason why the 360 doesn’t look any different is that the 360 upscales the image before it gets to the TV. It was a major strong point between the PS3 and it, making games look a lot better. That and the special 32mb of RAM it had that was used to provide AA over what the PS3 could do. The upscaling though would be what is making the MClassic not able to make a real difference in the 360 games.

On 360 got to ‘Reference Levels’ and change it to ‘Standard’. On ps3 change ‘RGB Full Range’ to ‘Limited’

first thing that came to mind is that the games made by ms/nintendo might be just perfected better often so there's not as much to fix. then, more simple and already 1080p games just don't need the extra scaling+antialiasing. the games that benefitted seem to be also a bit more cartoony which kinda makes sense. maybe test some games that have performance issues when native 1080p? can't remember much from x360 era, but games like Cyberpunk on PS4 must have been around even earlier. Force them to 720p and see what happens.

There's one more use case which is pretty cool actually. Emulation. I have Mini PC that is able to output 720p PS3 emulation, same applies to 3DS, Gamecube (well this probably runs 1080p), Switch, while it can't handle 1080p that smooth. So, what i did is to stay with 720p, throw mClassic and the difference is visible, to a degree that in some fighting game, I look at it (Virtua Fighter Ps3 ?) and think - yeah, it doesn't look like game from 2006. It's 1080p and has antialiasing. Of course, another question is - is it really worth ? I would say that in the FPS or any other games where camera works a lot, it's really hard to spot the improvements, while if the scene is rather static (fighting game or some 2d platformer) then yea, the difference may be actually pretty big, to a degree that you'll think: "yeah, this looks good". ps. probably Nintendo WII with hdmi adapter may look very good too. (did it had 480p ?)

The processing looks like the effect of a Lookup table (LUT), with a little bit of FXAA anti-aliasing.

I have never thought the mclassic was a good solution. I notice that it causes ringing on the edges that is confused with sharpness.

Honestly you guys would probably be better off with the RetroTink line of products for upscaling. I wen the Mclassic route and I wish I started with the RetroTink 2xpro. It was so much cleaner and the options I had to mess around with made the difference. I hope this helps someone make the right choice for them. Take care everyone :)

I feel like everyone uses the Mclassic wrong. I have all of my consoles hooked up with HDMI adapters, and they run through some auto switches with the HDMI ending with the Mclassic. It can be difficult to get all of the devices to handshake properly so I would have sprung for a larger auto switch if I was doing it again. With my PS2 running in that configuration, the Mclassic crushes it on smoothing, though it always will depend on the contrast of the native image. Tons of games look like ai upscaled hd remasters as of late. It won't be everyone's cup of tea since it's a matter of taste, but I will note that it darkens the image like crazy on my PS2 in that setup and I just lighten the game in the game settings. Gamecube looks great, Xbox looks great, N64 looks great with Mclassic and an eon adapter, switch is definitely an improvement at 1080p even. I've even run DVDs and Blu-rays through my PS3 (the use-case for the 4k 30fps upscaling) and DVDs see a dramatic improvement in the color space and look a lot closer to a Blu-ray. The black levels are dramatically improved compared to the grey tinge that a lot of DVDs have from compression. Blu-ray is a bit of a diminishing return because I'd say most good 4k players will upscale it exactly the same. The long story short is buy one especially if you have more than one older console, and use multiple consoles through one.

Would it increase the frame rate on the switch, if you render at 720 and upscale to 1080