Hardware Review: Can You Really “Make Your Own Switch Pro” With This $ 100 Dongle?

The debate over the existence of a ‘Switch Pro’ continues, with reports suggesting that it would be announced this year seemingly refuted by the arrival of the more modest Switch OLED model. However, the promise of 4K gaming has clearly struck a chord with the general public, and in an effort to fill the void, Marseille, Inc. has given its mClassic a new marketing push, boldly stating that you can transform your standard Switch into a ‘Switch Pro’ for just $ 100.

“The eternal disappointment of Nintendo fans continues,” reads the press release sent to us in August. “While we were all anticipating the Switch Pro, we instead got an OLED screen with exactly the same resolution and the same Joy-Con changes. It’s the 3DS XL series all over again. However, not all hope is lost. No we know when or if we will get a Switch Pro, players can create their own with the mClassic from Marseille. “

That all sounds great, but what it is But the mClassic? It is actually the successor to a similar product called mCable, which was advertised as a ‘plug-and-play graphics card on a cable’ a few years ago. The premise behind both products is quite simple; The complex technology built into both allows them to ‘enhance’ the image coming from their console, as well as introduce post-processing features such as smoothing, image sharpening, and color processing, all with ‘virtually zero lag,’ according to Marseille (it’s less than 1 ms).

The mClassic is certainly a great refinement compared to the mCable. It’s a dongle-like device that basically sits between your console and the HDMI cable that connects to your TV. There is a male HDMI connector on one end (which is connected to the source, in this case your Switch docking station) and a female HDMI port on the other (for your output device). The mClassic requires USB power, which is provided through a MicroUSB socket that can be connected to your Switch dock. The only other noteworthy item on the device is a switch that allows you to toggle processing; this can be set to off (no LED light), on (green LED light), or retro mode (blue LED light – we’ll talk about that in a moment).

So can the mClassic Really Boost your Switch games to 4K? Unfortunately, despite the noble promise of marketing, no. The mClassic is capable of upscaling the 720p / 60fps and 1080p / 60fps signals that the Switch produces up to a maximum resolution of 1440p, but not 4K. According to Marseille, the mClassic will improve playability up to 1440p60 “on compatible monitors” (You may find that your TV can not only play 1080p) and for optimal performance you should configure your Switch to have 720p output later Enable the mClassic, which feels weird as you’re essentially telling your console to hit below its best and let the external hardware do the heavy lifting.

So why not 4K? Isn’t this being touted as a Switch Pro style update? Well, Marseille is not being totally dishonest here, like the mClassic it is capable of 4K upscaling, but only with 30fps signals, not 60, so it will improve movies, but not games.

Still, the mClassic clearly does have some effect on your Switch’s output, even if it’s pretty subtle and often easy to miss unless you pause the game and toggle the mClassic’s switch on and off to see the difference. The main benefit, and certainly the easiest to understand, is the softening of the jagged edges of the objects’ ‘steps’, usually when they are in diagonal orientations. It’s not a perfect solution and varies wildly from game to game, but it’s definitely there and when combined with the modest resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p it results in an image that looks noticeably sharper, when running at your fingertips. maximum effect, ie. However, if you’re viewing in 1080p, the effect is much, much harder to capture, and it’s worth noting that in some rare cases, the mClassic’s combination of scaling, sharpening, and color processing can lead to unwanted side effects, as ‘sparkle’ at the sharp edges where two striking colors or shades meet.

While Marseille has blatantly exploited consumer disappointment over the lack of a 4K-ready Switch console, it’s worth noting that the mClassic can also work its magic on 480p signals via its aforementioned ‘retro’ mode, so you can use it to clean up the image on other systems, as long as you have the equipment to get the required HDMI connection from them. For example, the GameCube now has more than one option when it comes to output via HDMI thanks to the efforts of EON, Insurrection, and Retro-Bit, which means you can happily use the mClassic with Nintendo’s square wonder. Because this is a very low resolution image, the results are instantly more apparent, with irregularities significantly smoothed out, and the image looks much, much sharper. We also used the mClassic with our HDMI-modified Sega Dreamcast, and the results were just as nice. Even better is the fact that the unit’s retro mode forces a 4: 3 aspect ratio, which is more in keeping with games released before the advent of widescreen TVs. This is especially useful if you find that your current television is expanding the 4: 3 picture from a console to 16: 9.

If you have access to a scaler like the OSSC that can upscale signals from 240p to 480p, then there are even more options, including systems like the Mega Drive, SNES, Saturn, and PlayStation. The problem here is that the mClassic tends to aggressively smooth out sharp pixels, making it look like you’ve applied one of those hideous filters that many emulators inexplicably possess. In 32-bit 3D games, the result is equally unpleasant, as the extreme jagged edges of objects are softened and darkened. While it is nice that the mClassic is capable of supporting a wide range of platforms and some games may benefit from it, we recommend that you do not go back in time further than the Dreamcast or GameCube as the results are not really not. satisfying enough to justify the effort.

Until we see what Nintendo has in store for its rumored ‘Switch Pro,’ it’s hard to say if the mClassic is truly transformer. It certainly improves the image produced by the Switch (and other systems), but the impact is so slight in many cases that you might have a hard time noticing. At $ 100, the mClassic is a great investment, and it may not offer the upgrade that many people expect.

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Thanks to Marseille for supplying the mClassic unit used in this role.