Hardware postprocess Reshade box (like mcable)

There is a thing exist, called Mcable. Its very expensive, it does not update often and results are mixed, there is no way user can configure firmware and change effects, and also its a whole cable, instead of just tiny adapter that connects to existing cable, also it requires expensive license for any other manufacturer to make this thing,, so despite good idea of post processing build into cable, implementation is so so.

More info about it could be found here www.marseilleinc.com/mcable-gaming-edition/


This, however, inspired idea - what if we can make similar thing, but open source and license free, so that any chinesse vendor can do a cheap clone that anyone can afford on ale express like it happens with arduino and pi, and best part of that idea - i would have hardware port of reshade with all the effects 100% compatible with software version, and so that user can upload any of fav effects (exept for those that needs depth buffer... but even this can be achieved tricky way by using stereo signal to produce fake depth map) to this adapted and use it anywhere, even on consoles and dvd and blue ray players or tv sets!

As bonus part - this device could be also used as cheap software based scanline generator and color corrector for anything that has some problems with that, for example to deal with typical PC port problems when games designed for console limited 16-235 color range run on PC 0-255 full range without any conversion and got all washed out and desaturated.

i know, Crosire not hardware engineer, so we need to find one to make this real, and crosire could probably make only core firmware port of reshade engine, while rest of firmware needs to be done by someone with good hardware low level programming. But this got to start from idea,, which im proposing.


Here are few tips that this device should follow to be great:

0) Device should have 2 USB ports, one micro USF for power and connection with PC and uploading of firmware and shaders and for manual config configuration, and another regular USB for connection of HID devices or Flash usb sticks for firmware and shader and config uploading and sharing without need for PC (just imagine - you came to friend, found out his cool shader and config and want to have same thing at your home - you just plug in any usb stick into box, copy shaders, firmware and config and go back to your home and have same effects... or mayby you just set up cool effects at home and want to share them with your friend? )
1) This device should be a tiny box with double sided adhersive tape to stick it to tv or display in case someone would not like to keep it on table.
2) Box should have 2 inputs and 2 outputs 2xHDMI and 2xDP with intersection and bidirectional conversion of both, so this box could simply be used as HDMI<>DP active adapter and spliter. Basically it should work like that - you plug 1 hdmi or dp input cable and it outputs same picture on hdmi and dp output ports, and with any hdmi\dp adapter you can basically have 2 hmdis or 2 dps. Actually such adapter and mini cable, should be included to save people from troubles finding one, i guess some 10 cm patch cord DP to DP, HDMI to HDMI and DP to HDMI and HDMI to DP will be everything everyone would ever need.
2.5) For retro gaming it actully will be good idea to support component or composite or both outputs as well, so that box could be used as HDMI\DP to RCA adapter, but those ports should not be on set, mini jack with 4 pins like in Rasberry PI will be fine, except that ground and vide should be better reversed for vide compatibility. Actually having RCA input in form of mini jack would be also good and would allow to use this as RCA to HDMI\DP adapter too, just imagine playing SONY, Nintendo, SEGA and other console games on real hardware with reshade!!!
3) Latest DP and HDMI standards such as DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 should be supported for full 4k+ HDR glory
4) EDID should be editable and should support custom resolutions, basically EDID uploading should be implemented
5) EDID pass through also should be available with some switch button to use original display edid
6) Down and upsampling should be available,, so that for example 4k input signal from video card could be downsampled to 1080p or even 720p or 480p for non 4k displays and opposite upsampling should be available as well, which with addition of some aa and sharpening shaders could be great thing not even for games, but even for movies and tv.
Selection of rendering resolution of reshade effects should be inddependant from hardware or down\up sampled resolution, so that you can render game in 4k, downsample it to 720p and apply reshade buffer rendered at 1080p and downsampled to 720p or maybe apply 720p render buffer of reshade to 1080p for sake of optimisation of some heavy effects.
9) Device should be able to accept 3D signal of any format and use it to generate depth map based on difference in angle between 2, also depth reverse should be availlable in case detection will go wrong
10) device should have settings overlay that will mimic current reshade UI in simplified fashion, also PC app should exist for preconfiguration with some selectable preview images (actually it could be just a regular reshade with simple 3d render window with ability to select picture for preview of how effect will work).
11) Device should have wireless remote control and everything should be configurable with it, probably it will be good idea if USB keyboard and mouse and wireless dongles will be supported as well to manually enter values and use mouse cursor and do it all like you can on pc
12) Obviosly device should have some memory to store all the configs,, shaders, textures, firmware and even some backups and alt sets of shaders, memory is cheap nowadays, i thing 1gb will be enought for everything, with ability to use USB sticks as expansion for storing more sets of shader
13) There should be ability to store separte sets of shaders, not just configs
14) Shaders better to be editable right on device like it can be done now in Reshade 4, this will definetly require to connect HID device like wireless keyboard and mouse recieve to regual usb port.
15) Shaders dont need to be compiled every time, compiled cache shoud be used until some shader code will change (this actually could be usefull in pc version as well)
16) Configuration and performance mode should be supported just like in software version
17) Did i mention that everything should be 100% compatible between software and hardware version? So users can easily exchange shaders and configs between both?
18) I suppose, to have good performance and no lag (except that tiny lag that effects add now), some good 3d chip with OpenGLES support needs to be used and in general hardware should be similar to some cheap smartphone or similar to all of Pi devices (obviously existing Pis would not work as they dont have hdmi input and no DP, however if someone could build expansion card that will allo lag free HDMI input and also DP input and output, it could be used as prototype and maybe some modification of Pi architecture could be a good base for final device) with tinies litest linux core running reshade or maybe even windows IOT core (i guess this one would be easier to port on, and its free more details here developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot )... but if there is some hardware guru who can port reshade and all the features without using any linux and windows core and do it so fast it can run on some basic chips - thats more preferable way of doing things.
Here some good list of hardware specs of similar one board micro pcs just to get idea:


19) would be really nice if this device would have ability to make screenshots with push of one button on remote controller and save it on internal store and on usb stick as well. Video capture will be nice feature too. Just imagine how cool it would be to capture reshaded screenshots and videos of you console games or even movies (a lot of them definetly needs some color rebalancing to actually look good, those colorist loves to ruin natural picture with weird ugly color tones or wrong color spaces applied), actually with enough of space you can kinda wrote and reprocess whole movie with shader effects applied and make your own remastered "Screw the colorist cut", you can even re-record your old VHS footage with effects that will make it more HD
20) Actually it will be really nice if whennever atachhed to PC via USB it will also serve as usb flash for easy configu and shader and firmware upload and as generic video capture device (probably usb 3.0 support is needed to capture at full speed and full resolution) that will make it possible to stream console reshaded games to Twitch, Youtube from PC, so it would work like this - one cable plugs from console into Reshade Box, usb connects its to PC and processed image gots mirrored to it for capture, and at the same time output cable goes to TV. In this case it also possible to play directly on PC, with addition of some simple capture window rendered as 3d surface that can be expanned into fullscreen mode, which will also allo Nvidia Expirience to stream it.

This would be a mutlipurpose universal device of dream of many gamers and even movies fans - its adapated of all sorts, its video capture and streaming box, its a hardware post processing box that can work with any pc and console games and even with movies and whatever, its a crt generator (with shader like GTUv50 you can even emulate poor cable signal to smooth our dithering and make softer gradiients in retro games).

Now where is this hardware guru that can make this dream a reality? Maybe we should search for some chinesse vendor ready to make something like this ???

So, no one like the idea of making hardware reshade box\cable that can work with consoles and anything?

I like the idea but it's very ambitious and a lot of work, much of it in areas I doubt we have expertise in.

I think you need to break it down into smaller steps that are less daunting.

Let's simplify this - what is the minimum we need to do something like this? When we have that we can build from there.

I think we could start with something like PTBi : github.com/PeterTh/PtBi and web.archive.org/web/20190506231414/http:....metaclassofnil.com/
That is we find or create a capture program and find a low-latency capture card/box that can capture from HDMI.
The capture program will need to work with Reshade so preferably one that uses a 3D API. I know OBS can use its own shader plugins so it might be a target to hook Reshade into, or maybe we could at least port some of the simpler effects to it's shader effect system

We should now have a working way of capturing the output of a console and applying shader effects to it.

From there we might need to find a more convenient way to hook the PC up to a TV. You can place the computer in HDMI cable range of a computer but HDMI cables start to get expensive above 5 meters. You could also stream to something like a steamlink or use chromecast but that adds extra latency.

If you really want to go the specialized hardware route then the first step would like be to find a linux programmer willing to work on Reshade.
We already want to have Reshade ported to linux and Mac, so that aligns with our goals.

If you can help with either of these tasks then you are one step closer to having Reshade effects on consoles.

1) Find a capture program that works with Reshade
2) Find good hardware that works with this capture program
3) Find a Linux programmer who wants to work on Reshade.

Good luck!