Hi, I saw a Youtube Short showing Pico-8 running on the PicoCalc. It looked a bit choppy, though it is hard to tell if it is the game or Pico-8. Has anyone successfully managed to run Pico-8 on the PicoCalc? If so, what is your experience?
This is the video I found. https://youtube.com/shorts/E0V6lO3OV30?si=H7B1E5VHU0JobZCH
I feel that the scrolling and the sprite movements could be a bit smoother. Maybe it’s the game and not the an issue with Pico-8 running on this minimal hardware.
I would suggest change to pico 2 W and hopefully it gets better.
It’s not an original board, but an alternative one.
There is a thread made by video author: Luckfox Lyra on PicoCalc - #8 by hisptoot
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Somone was working on getting something Pico-8 compaitible running on the Pi Pico years ago, but abandoned it because the Pico hardware could not handle it.
Instead, the project was adapted to ESP32, but has not been updated for a couple of years. Only a few games were tested, and although they ran at what looks like close to full speed, there was also no sound support:
The community here on the forum has shown the PicoCalc supports far more than just the standard Pico modules. But everything is currently a work in progress. The Luckfox Lyra is a powerful choice since it runs Linux. If the Milk-V Duo can be made to work, that might be another good option. And the various ESP32-S3 modules, while not as powerful as the Luckfox Lyra and Milk-V Duo, are still more powerful than the Pico/Pico2 hardware and also a bit more flexible.
As far as I’ve seen, none of the existing modules that at compatible with the Pico layout include any kind of GPU hardware though. And it’s unlikely any will, since that’s not a usual use case. (Most are targeting IoT applications, or AI stuff, which is why they might have triple+ core processors, more/faster memory, more flash storage, USB-host, additional camera/screen options, etc.) But so far they haven’t been built with gaming, or any kind of high framerate graphical display in mind.
It’s possible some emulators for classic systems may work on the Lyra. (My guess is we probably won’t see anything past SNES and maybe GBA running full speed, and even those would be doubtful.) And they’ll likely be custom dedicated emulators rather than Retroarch, though it sounded like someone may be interested in attempting that on the Lyra. There have already been some custom emulators created and made to work on various ESP32 hardware, so those may be ported to the ESP32-S3 modules. The original Pico hardware may see some ports if people in the community are interested, but I’m guessing it will take more work, and also be more limited than the other hardware that is available. But the PicoCalc is unlikely to ever be a gaming machine due to hardware limitations. Even though it’s older hardware now, the Gameshell would probably be a better choice since it has a GPU and can handle standard linux ports.
Something like this might be a better choice (to be ported) if you’re looking for a fantasy console. Although this targets ESP32 as well, and not Pico. It would need to be adapted to the screen, keyboard, and whatever else might be different on the PicoCalc though.
This could probably be adapted as well, again for ESP32-based modules: