Four days ago, ChromaLock, a well-known YouTuber, unveiled his latest tech endeavor on his channel. This time, he decided to take a nostalgic trip by tinkering with a Game Boy Color, transforming it into a device capable of video playback using its original link cable, thanks to a Raspberry Pi Pico and some specially crafted software.
When it comes to video playback, simplicity is key for better FPS. Surprisingly, video streamed from a USB webcam appeared smooth and clear, in stark contrast to the original Game Boy Camera. However, most videos are best viewed in monochrome due to the device’s limited 4-color palette, which struggles to run on the the Game Boy Color’s 160 x 144-pixel screen efficiently.
The brains behind this setup is an application called CGBLinkVideo, which ChromaLock generously shared on GitHub. It’s built with contributions from other open-source projects. Although video is compressed to 1 Megabyte per second, the link cable’s bandwidth caps at 64 Kilobytes per second, leading to significant compression of video frames. Such compression often results in dropped or split frames, yet the system does manage to function overall.
The informative video by ChromaLock not only showcases the video playback capabilities but also delves deep into the technical hurdles faced with the Game Boy Color’s hardware limitations. Videos can reach up to an impressive 60 FPS in grayscale or monochrome settings, while color footage lags behind, topping out at 12 FPS.
ChromaLock also experimented with streaming video games. Unfortunately, streaming original Game Boy titles through this method was noticeably inferior compared to running them natively. As for current 3D games like Doom Eternal, their high-res graphics became unintelligible on the diminutive, low-res screen of the Game Boy Color.
The driving force behind ChromaLock’s project seemed to be the challenge of making the famous Touhou Project music video “Bad Apple” run effortlessly on a Game Boy Color. This video, being monochrome by nature, turned out to be quite achievable at 60 FPS on the device, albeit with some noticeable dithering due to the streaming process.
