Gameboy Color on LED Array

I've been hard at work and have got my Gameboy Color hooked up to a special control board I made last week. It buffers and distributes video to up to 16 24*72 pixel RGB LED boards.

I have 12 of the boards, but due to power consumption and space, I only have two of them running right now. They are showing a segment of the Gameboy screen that is 48 pixels wide and 72 pixels high.

The "video" source is a Gameboy Color that has been modified to add a digital output that plugs into my controller board.

The games (in order):

1) Shanghai Pocket
2) Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle 3
3) Tetris (with me changing ports to show a different portion of the screen)
4) Marble Madness (again changing ports)
5) Revenge of the Gator Pinball

In some of the parts, there's random pixels on the edges. This is because the frame buffer is not being filled completely. I just haven't gotten around to fixing that yet.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Electronics
• LED
• PWM
• Matrix
• RGB
• Gameboy
• Color
• Videogames

[Amishman35]

I wonder how much faster the response time of the LED display is compared to the original monochrome Gameboy with the yellowish screen...

[kevtris]

The gameboy's screen refresh is around 60Hz. My LED displays refresh at 85Hz.  There is a triple frame buffer with a "demand" system: One buffer is always being filled while the latest full frame possible is being shown;

If a frame is not ready from the gameboy, the same frame is shown again, so this in effect performs a 1:1.4 or so upsample. This also prevents any form of tearing from occuring.

[sutasman]

Thats pretty awesome

[Malenki888]

This soundtrack comes from NiM2.

[aktechfreak]

AMAZING

[bibinson]

This provides the advantage of always feeling secure about the chances of a fully rendered frame being prepared in time for the next what-would-be-60hz update, but also provides the disadvantage of the time between full rendered frames not always being even, which may look choppy on scrolling.

Have you considered making an RGB DAC and then an RGB to S-video or Composite converter, allowing for TV output?

[whoeverisayiam]

is this an expensive project?

[Speedwing2008]

From which game is the soundtrack from? Would like to remix it....

[THEtechknight]

i bet that sucker was NOT cheap to make. look at those commercial outdoor LED signs powered by ARM FPGAs. 30k or more dollars.

[nevermindthehunt]

Nice man.