Just a few days ago, ChromaLock, a known figure on YouTube, took to his channel to unveil his latest tech experiment. This time around, he’s managed to get a Game Boy Color to play videos using its original link cable, thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico and some slick custom software tailored for the task.
When it comes to video playback on this retro handheld, simplicity is key for smoother frames per second (FPS). Surprisingly, the setup delivers fairly clear and fluid visuals, outperforming even the classic Game Boy Camera when a USB webcam is at play. However, due to limitations of the Game Boy Color’s limited color palette (just four), monochrome video tends to deliver the best results on its familiar 160 x 144-pixel screen.
The heart of this setup is an application called CGBLinkVideo, crafted by ChromaLock and shared on GitHub. It leverages other open-source software to work its magic. The video gets crunched down to just 1 Megabyte per second. Still, the real pinch comes from the Link Cable, which can only handle a mere 64 Kilobytes per second, resulting in seriously compressed final frames. This means issues like dropped or split frames are a given, yet the fact that it functions at all is impressive.
In his full video, ChromaLock doesn’t just display the results; he delves into the nitty-gritty of creating this tool within the confines of the Game Boy Color’s architecture. When using grayscale or monochrome, playback can reach up to a smooth 60 FPS, but introducing color drops this dramatically, capping it around 12 FPS.
While experimenting with streaming games, they found even classics from the original Game Boy suffered in performance compared to running them natively on the device itself. And when it comes to graphically demanding modern titles like Doom Eternal, the Game Boy Color’s dated display simply can’t keep up, rendering such attempts unreadable.
At the core of ChromaLock’s endeavor was a playful yet challenging mission: to successfully play the famed Touhou Project music video “Bad Apple” on a Game Boy Color with smooth playback. Since this particular video is in monochrome, achieving 60 FPS was possible, although some noticeable dithering appeared due to the streaming technique.
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