Raspberry Pi Pico Enables Live Video Streaming on Nintendo Game Boy Color

Just a few days ago, on his YouTube channel, ChromaLock unveiled his latest hardware creation. This time around, he explored how to make a Game Boy Color stream video using its trusty old link cable, a Raspberry Pi Pico, and some custom software. The whole setup is optimized to handle this unique task and the results are quite impressive.

When it comes to video playback on a Game Boy Color, simpler videos tend to run with a smoother and clearer FPS. It’s a notable improvement compared to using the classic Game Boy Camera, especially if you hook up a USB webcam. However, most videos look best in monochrome because the Game Boy Color’s palette is pretty limited, only offering four colors. Trying to work with these constraints on the 160 x 144-pixel display can be quite a challenge.

ChromaLock has also developed a nifty streaming tool named CGBLinkVideo, which he has shared on GitHub. It’s designed to work seamlessly with the Raspberry Pi Pico, Game Boy Color, and link cable. Now, the video compression reduces the quality to about 1 Megabyte per second, but here’s the catch: the link cable’s speed tops out at 64 Kilobytes per second. This means that the video frames are incredibly compressed, leading to more frequent instances of dropped or split frames. Yet, despite these challenges, the playback still manages to function.

In the YouTube video, ChromaLock doesn’t stop at just showing the gaming marvel of streaming on a Game Boy—he delves deep into how he successfully navigated the console’s system limitations. The outcomes are remarkable when using grayscale or monochrome settings, achieving up to 60 FPS. Incorporating color, though, often sees the FPS drop to around 12, due to the extra complexity.

ChromaLock also took a shot at streaming video games, with varying degrees of success. Even old Game Boy titles struggled to match the native performance, while high-resolution modern 3D games like Doom Eternal turned into an unreadable pixel mess on the vintage display.

The underlying drive for this project seems to be showcasing the renowned Touhou Project music video “Bad Apple,” running smoothly on the Game Boy Color. The original video being monochrome made it a perfect candidate, and reaching 60 FPS on the handheld console became doable, albeit with noticeable dithering as a side effect of the streaming process.

This exploration not only pushes the nostalgia buttons of Game Boy enthusiasts but also serves as a fascinating intersection of old and new technology.