Nintendo Game Boy Color Receives Real-Time Video Stream from Raspberry Pi Pico

Just a few days ago, ChromaLock, a popular YouTuber, released a video detailing his newest hardware adventure. In his latest endeavor, he modified a Game Boy Color to play videos via its original link cable, utilizing a Raspberry Pi Pico along with some custom software tailored for the task.

The trick here is that simple videos offer higher frame rates, providing surprisingly smooth playback. This quality is comparable to the connected USB webcam, unlike the old Game Boy Camera accessory. However, the best video results appear in monochrome because the Game Boy Color’s limited palette of four colors makes it challenging to run full-color videos on its 160 x 144-pixel display.

To achieve this feat, ChromaLock used a tool called CGBLinkVideo, specifically designed for this purpose, which he uploaded to GitHub. It relies on a mix of open-source software to function. Though the video quality compresses to about 1 Megabyte per second, the Link Cable can only handle 64 Kilobytes per second, necessitating even further compression of video frames. This technique often leads to issues like dropped or split frames, but surprisingly, it manages to run quite well despite these hurdles.

In ChromaLock’s video, he doesn’t just display the playback capabilities; he dives deep into how the tool is developed, respecting the constraints of the Game Boy Color. When using grayscale or monochrome, video playback can reach impressive speeds up to 60 FPS. Though, once color comes into play, the output usually drops to around 12 FPS.

He also experimented with streaming video games. Yet, playing classic Game Boy titles via streaming was noticeably inferior compared to playing them natively, and modern games like Doom Eternal were simply indecipherable on the Game Boy Color’s basic, low-res screen.

The driving force behind ChromaLock’s project seemed to be more about the novelty of making something like the famous “Bad Apple” video from the Touhou Project run smoothly on a Game Boy Color. Since the video is naturally monochrome, achieving 60 FPS was not out of reach, although noticeable dithering occurred due to the streaming technique.

And there you have it, the intriguing tale of how modern tech was repurposed to breathe life into a classic handheld device.