Summary
e-Ink on ESP32 M5Stack PaperS3 runs at 60Hz, turning low-refresh limits into smooth motion
Game Boy emulation is shockingly playable by rendering the 160×144 area efficiently
PaperBoyS3 is on M5Burner; download it now.
If you’ve ever read one of my ESP32 pieces, you’ll know I’m a huge sucker for e-Ink devices. They look incredible, to the point where you can just hang one up on your wall and it’d fit right in with the rest of your art. However, they do have low refresh rates, which means they’re often delegated to showing photos and smart home dashboards. Which isn’t a bad thing; it’s just a limitation.
Well, one tinkering genius has been hard at work making that one weakness a thing of the past. They’ve managed to get an ESP32-powered e-Ink display running at a smooth 60Hz, which means you can play Game Boy games on it with an extremely playable framerate.
This Game Boy emulator on the M5Stack PaperS3 is shockingly playable
It’s basically as good as the real deal
As spotted by PCGamer, this amazing feat was performed by Wenting Channel on YouTube. To get the job done, they used an M5Stack PaperS3, which combines an ESP32-S3 with a 4.7-inch e-Ink touchscreen. As such, getting a Game Boy emulator up and running is as simple as turning the screen into a digital Game Boy and letting people play by pressing the buttons on-screen.
Because the screen renders at 60Hz, playing games on the “Paper Boy” is actually very feasible, mainly because the Game Boy’s resolution was 160×144. This means they could focus most of the processing on that small square, which means more power to render the game at a playable frame rate. Wenting even went so far as to tweak the PaperS3’s buzzer to replicate the Game Boy’s sound system.
If you want to give this a try yourself, you can find PaperBoyS3 on M5Burner and download it onto your device right now. It’d definitely make replaying the classics a lot more fun.
Related
This ESP32-based NES emulator is a great way to play the classics on a tiny screen
It’s also a good starting base for a larger project.