How to display a PS5 at 1440p

[antithesis]

We all know by now that PS5 can't display at 1440p resolution, despite being technically capable of doing so. Most 4K games are upscaled 1440p, so the only reason Sony has disabled 1440p is to force sales of 4K 120Hz HDMI 2.1 screens that we really don't need for next-gen console gaming. But I digress...

I have one of these lying around - https://www.marseilleinc.com/mclassic/ and thought I'd give it a try on PS5. mClassic has a 1440p upscaler built-in and is capable of supporting 120Hz games.

I'm happy to report that the mClassic works! I have the PS5 running Days Gone in 1080p 60Hz, but displaying on the Dell at 1440p  60Hz

I have two screens connected to my gaming setup - a Dell 27" 1440p 144Hz and an Asus 43" 4K 120Hz (via DisplayPort 1.4). I also have an Elgato 4K Pro MkII for streaming / video capture, so the screens are connected to my consoles via a Portta HDMI 2.0 4x2 switch, followed by an Orei 1x2 HDMI 2.0 splitter.

I slotted the mClassic between the HDMI splitter and the Dell screen at the last HDMI cable in the chain, rather than from the console HDMI port. Neither the switch nor the splitter are required as the mClassic will work straight from the console, but it does demonstrate that mClassic works in more complex setups.

The Dell screen is displaying Days Gone at the screen's native 1440p resolution, but the Asus screen is displaying at the PS5's native 1080p signal. This means the two screens can run at independent resolutions instead of the HDMI signal forcing both screens to 1080p. That's a solid outcome.

mClassic adds smoothing to the 1440p upscaling to fill in the pixels, giving the textures an almost painted or cel-shaded quality with silky antialiasing, which looks very nice. I'll see how it looks in OBS when my RTX 3080 Ti arrives in a week or two.

More testing is needed as I've only tried a 1080p 60Hz game, but mClassic apparently supports 1440p and 120Hz upscaling. My hope is that mClassic can fill in the gap for PS5 gaming at 1440p until Sony adds native support.

As an added bonus, the Orei HDMI splitter provides 4K downscaling to 1440p for the Dell, while simultaneously display 4K on the Asus, so I have the best of both worlds. My PS5 will get more love than I anticipated as I wait it out for native 1440p support

[Update] mClassic supports 1440p 60Hz or 1080p 120Hz. Unfortunately it can't do 1440p 120Hz upscaling

mClassic does provide a 1440p upscaling option for PS5, but I wouldn't recommend it for multiplayer shooters. I got some beautiful results for 1080p 60Hz to 1440p 60Hz upscaling in some games (brighter colours, better depth, smoother aliasing, cleaner separation), but not for all.

I like mClassic, but maybe not enough to use it on the daily. I may try to push mClassic into OBS because the results can be a significant visual improvement in games like Days Gone & Borderlands 3 that benefit from mClassic’s antialiasing and brighter palette.

[Lukasz]

Boss, would you be able to check if it does 1440 120 on something like COD or D2? I mean VRR is out of the question right? or does this cute little nipple, point intended , gest around this limitation too?

[antithesis]

I'm installing Destiny 2 at the moment and will post an update once I've run some tests.

I'm already sans VRR due to the HDMI matrix &/or switch (which is fine because I need to disable VRR for streaming), but the PS5 doesn't have VRR anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.

Ultimately, I want to play PS5 at native 1440p, so the mClassic is a stop-gap measure. But the smoothing from the mClassic may help to remove artefacts from a 1080p stream, allowing for a higher quality at a lower bitrate due to less compression. In other words, I have both short-term and long-term use cases for the mClassic, so it should be good value for money.

[Lukasz]

Keep us posted, if it works 1440p 120 I am sold

[antithesis]

I should probably add that the mClassic 1440p upscaling works for any console with HDMI output, not just the PS5.

Where I have it in my HDMI chain (just before the Dell screen) will work for PS3, PS4, PS5, 360, XB1, Series X, Switch, retro NES & C64 consoles, an Nvidia Shield and a Raspberry Pi.

I bought mClassic because it apparently improves the screendoor mess that is PSVR, but I've barely ever touched the thing and don't have any future plans to do so.

[Lukasz]

looking at the upscaling chart on their website it seems that 1080 120 wont go to 1440 120 but I am curious to see the results of your testing

[antithesis]

Destiny 2 upscaled to 1440p 60Hz for single-player, but only worked at 1080p 120Hz for Crucible. So no benefit to be had there.

I didn't like the mClassic smoothing for Destiny 2. Destiny 2 did swap to 1440p for PvE, but it looks stuttery compared to Series X's buttery-smooth native 1440p 120Hz. This is due to Destiny 2's paltry 60FPS for PvE on PS5, not mClassic.

Smoothing also didn't help in the Crucible as the resolution was forced by the game to 1080p 120Hz. This has me wondering if mClassic is 1440p, or 120Hz, but not both I'll need to try another game that doesn't explicitly force a specific resolution. Series X wins here again with gorgeous native 1440p 120Hz multiplayer.

Is there a 1080p 120Hz PS5 game I can test? I don't have Cold War, so I'll dig around to see if I can find something suitable for a 1440p 120Hz test.

In any case, I think I'll use mClassic for PS5 single-player 1440p gaming. More testing is needed for multiplayer, but Destiny 2 was a fail.

looking at the upscaling chart on their website it seems that 1080 120 wont go to 1440 120 but I am curious to see the results of your testing

Would you mind posting the link? My Destiny 2 test seems to confirm it.

[antithesis]

It's looking like 1440p 60Hz, or 1080p 120Hz, but not 1440p 120Hz 

I tested Performance mode in Borderlands 3 and it stuck to 1080p 120Hz. Resolution mode in Borderlands swapped to 1440p and looked really good with brighter colours and cleaner aliasing (it's exactly the cartoon style that suits the upscale smoothing), but remained at 60Hz.

So far, I'm gonna give it a "yes" for upscaling singleplayer 60Hz PS5 gaming to 1440p, but "no" for any sort of multiplayer. I'll try a few more games before making a definitive call.

Honestly, I'll stick to Series X for as many games as possible. PS5 1440p 60FPS and 1080p 120FPS looks terrible compared to Series X 1440p 120FPS. I pulled the mClassic out to check if it was causing frame-skipping, but the problem is native PS5 framerate is really slow and performance is lacklustre compared to Series X. I don't notice it in 3PS games like Days Gone, but it's dead obvious in FPS games.

If given the option, swap to 120FPS for EVERY PS5 game (Performance Mode), in which case mClassic won't help at all. 1080p 120Hz on PS5 is ultimately a poor substitute for Series X's 1440p 120Hz and won't be fixed until Sony adds native 1440p support.

[Lukasz]

Yup, your findings seem to be consistent with their chart

https://imgur.com/TmZ91wo

[Lukasz]

Man, how do you actually add a pic to a post using the pic function

[antithesis]

Yup, your findings seem to be consistent with their chart

https://imgur.com/TmZ91wo

Thanks for that.

To insert an image from Imgur, you need the full path to the image file. Right-click the image and select "Open image in a new tab". Copy the URL, click the painting button above the XIM forum post editor, then paste the URL, e.g.




On a totally unrelated note, the Days Gone ST works really well in Destiny 2 It feels great if you want less sticky AA.

[Lukasz]

Ha! It worked! Thanks for the tip!

[antithesis]

Given the mClassic can output at a different resolution than instructed by the console or a HDMI switch or splitter (i.e one screen at 1440p with the other at 1080p), I'll pursue the alternate use case of piping mClassic into OBS and using it as a downscaler rather than an upscaler.

Pushing 1440p or 4K into OBS and rescaling to a 1080p canvas puts a strain on PC system resources and can lead to dropped frames or lower quality encoding. Likewise, increasing the canvas to higher 1440p or 4K resolution tanks OBS.

While I haven't had problems rescaling a 1440p video capture to a 1080p canvas, 1080p may be optimal for OBS considering it's not possible to stream to Twitch at more than 1080p.

With mClassic, I might be able to downscale 4K or 1440p to 1080p based on the EDID of the capture card, while retaining the higher resolution on my screens. That and the smoothing may help with rendering by removing aliasing.

It may not work, but let the fun and games begin!

[antithesis]

That worked, but not the way I wanted.

It's still possible to play at 1080p and upscale the video feed into OBS to 1440p, but not the other way round. 1080p 60Hz or 120Hz works fine, as does 1440p 60Hz, but not 1440p 120Hz or 4K 60Hz.

I may need to look into a downscaler feeding to the mClassic for the desired outcome of 1440p 120Hz to 1080p 120Hz, or 4K 60Hz to 1080p 60Hz

This one should do the job (ignore 60Hz, HDMI 2.0 supports 1440p 120Hz) - https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B08D6F569X.

Curse this 'tinkerer' affliction!

[AMG]

...
Curse this 'tinkerer' affliction!

"You cursed by knowledge..."
 

All right!, pretty interesting findings.

So, if you are PS5 player had a 1440p monitor want the best picture quality you have these options.
4K 60Hz forced in to 1440p:
a) Use an EDID Emulator
b) Monitor built-in downscaler
c) mClassic 1440p 60Hz

IMO for 1440p 120Hz, it has to be processed by GPU, no way around.

However, if Marseille sees a market gap work on a 1080p/120Hz to 1440p/120Hz, that's a interesting device.

I'm curious, How mClassic's 1440p/60Hz looks compared to EDID emulated 4K/60Hz push to 1440p monitor.

I watch this guy video comparing 1080 upscale into 1440p vs 4K downscale into 1440p, and I can't see the difference, granted I don't have the hardware at hand and my eyesight is bad  .

Anyways, thanks for sharing your findings antithesis!  very interesting topic.