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

Just a few days back, ChromaLock, a known YouTuber, put up an intriguing video where he talked about his latest hardware endeavor. The star of the show was a Game Boy Color that could stream video through its original link cable, all thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico and some nifty custom software tailored for this task.

When it comes to video playback, the simpler the video, the smoother the frames per second (FPS) you’ll get. In fact, it offers impressive clarity when compared to using a USB webcam instead of the classic Game Boy Camera. However, most videos work best in a monochrome setting because the Game Boy Color’s 160 x 144-pixel screen really struggles with its limited palette of just four colors.

ChromaLock developed an app called CGBLinkVideo—available on GitHub—for his project. It combines the Raspberry Pi Pico, Game Boy Color, and a link cable. This tool uses some other open-source software as a foundation. While the video has to be compressed down to 1 Megabyte per second, the limitation lies with the Link Cable, which caps at just 64 Kilobytes per second. This results in a lot of compression, making dropped or split frames pretty common. Despite these challenges, it does actually manage to function!

ChromaLock’s video isn’t just about showcasing his creation in action. It dives deep into the development insights, discussing how he navigated the Game Boy Color’s technical constraints. If you’re sticking to grayscale or monochrome, you may reach playback speeds up to 60 FPS, while color tends to restrict it to around 12 FPS.

The team also tested some video game streaming. Even playing the original Game Boy games felt subpar compared to their native execution. When it came to modern, high-resolution games like Doom Eternal, the Game Boy Color’s ancient, low-resolution screen couldn’t do them justice—they were just an indiscernible mess.

The highlight of ChromaLock’s project seemed to be about successfully running the famous music video from the Touhou Project, “Bad Apple,” smoothly on a Game Boy Color. Given that the video is initially in monochrome, achieving 60 FPS didn’t only seem feasible but was indeed realized, albeit with notable dithering due to the streaming approach.