Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W Hits 1080p HDMI Without a Framebuffer
A Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W now outputs 1080p30 HDMI in 24-bit color by building each scanline on the fly, beating the old 720p record for Pico-class chips.
A Microcontroller Doing Full HD
Aaron Gayle has pushed a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W to output 1080p HDMI video, a first for Pico-class chips. Hackaday reported the build on September 21, noting that the previous high-water mark for the family was 720p on the older RP2040. The firmware drives a 1920 by 1080 picture at 30Hz in full 24-bit color from a microcontroller with just 520KB of RAM.
- Output: 1920 by 1080 at 30Hz with 8 bits per color channel, plus 720p60, 960p60, 1080p25, 1080p24 and 480p60 modes
- Clocking: the RP2350 runs at 372 MHz with the core regulator at 1.30V, well beyond stock settings
- Memory trick: no framebuffer at all; each scanline is built just in time, six lines ahead
- License: MIT, with the firmware on GitHub
How Does a 520KB Chip Draw a 6MB Picture?
It does not store the picture. A single 1080p frame at 24-bit color needs nearly 6MB, more than ten times the RP2350's total RAM. So the firmware keeps the scene as vector geometry cached in flash and renders each line as run-length commands for the chip's HSTX high-speed serial peripheral just before the display needs it. Hackaday likens the approach to the racing-the-beam techniques of 1980s 8-bit computers, and it is a lovely example of old tricks meeting new silicon.
The bandwidth math is tight. According to the project README, 1080p30 needs 744 Mbit/s, while HSTX is rated for 300 Mbit/s per pin, so the video data is spread across three data pins plus a clock. That is why the overclock is needed, and why 30Hz rather than 60Hz is the ceiling at full HD for now.
What Is It Actually For?
This is not just a stunt. The firmware turns the Pico into an HDMI games console for TV-Top Games, a board game platform where the TV acts as the board and every player uses their own phone as a controller. Hardware requirements are refreshingly simple:
- A Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, or a Pico W for lower resolutions
- Eight GPIOs wired to an HDMI connector through a DVI breakout board
- Wi-Fi from the Pico 2 W's onboard radio, or an optional ESP32-C3 over UART to handle networking and TLS and free up more RAM
With the onboard radio and TLS linked in, about 48KB of RAM remains at 1080p; offloading networking to an ESP32-C3 raises that to about 79KB.
Should You Overclock Your Own Pico This Far?
Treat it as an experiment. Running at 372 MHz and 1.30V is outside the RP2350's rated specifications, so results can vary from chip to chip, and good airflow does no harm. The lower-resolution modes are the sensible starting point, and the reward for trying is watching an inexpensive microcontroller board fill a living room TV.
Gayle credits a 2023 Hackaday article that asked whether 1080p from a Pico was even possible. Three years later the answer is yes. If you enjoy RP2350 tinkering, the RP2350B Bells and Whistles board with onboard HDMI and Moonshine voice AI on a Pico 2 show how far the chip keeps stretching. More builds live in our mini computer coverage.
Sources: Hackaday — September 21, 2026; TV-Top kiosk firmware on GitHub — accessed September 22, 2026.
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