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PANDORA 6


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  • 1 month later...

My Pandora's Box 6 arrived the other day and finally got around to playing with it. What a let down.

Firstly, 3A are sneaky. Yeah sure, for those illiterate in anything arcade this is plug and play.

Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 does NOT work. Well let me rephrase that, the 'arcade' version of MK 2 plays like balls.

But how is it on the list of roms and it boots? Well here's the sneaky part, which boggles me why nobody had even mentioned this. Maybe they're just too stupid?

3A added PSX support. Yep, just a PSX core in retroarch I'm guessing. And what they did was incorporate PSX version of MK and Tekken under their 'arcade' menu. So when you boot MK 2, you're booting the PS Rom, not the arcade Rom. Why the f@#k didn't anyone mention this in their reviews? Do these people even know? So what I did was add in the MK 2 arcade Rom. Surely this hardware is powerful enough to run it? Nope. Maybe the h/w is? Maybe their software design is terrible? Whatever the reason, it runs terribly. MK 3 and 4 didn't even boot. But with that said, it's an improvement over their previous versions. MK 1 and NBA JAM are the original mame roms, and they play ok I guess. And there is the option to add extra games which is a plus. But overall, this is a big let down for me.

There's other issues though. The volume pot is delayed. You increase the volume and there's about a 1-2 second delay in the volume level (I'm testing this via JAMMA). So let's put the volume up a notch, and BAM, 2 seconds it blares out. Wow that's too loud, let's turn it down. Yep, too soft. This delay makes it hard to adjust the volume to the level you want.

There's still issues with certain games. Some games have issues with low volume/sfx, others all have tearing.

Oh and there's no damn Defender grrr. Oh i can add it. So I add the Defender Rom. Yeeep, no F2 key to skip the initial set up. Ok, there's a work around. Mame creates nvram files for certain games so that the initial set up is only needed once. I'll just add in the libretto files for defender to skip the boot. Yeeep, no way of accessing the internal sd data through Linux. I'm not too fluent in Linux but have a mate looking into it. Hopefully we get this thing cracked and can mess around with the system files. Or maybe I'll crack it by throwing it against the wall...

Will post back once I've looked into it further.

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This is why RPI is a good solution. It has it's problems as well, and shortcomings but at least everything is open and accessible.

 

Rpi requires tinkering, you need to be willing to spend the time messing with config files and settings, but once done it performs rather well. The plug n play argument for Pandora doesn't really qualify; sure you can plug it in and play it, if you're willing to accept an endless amount of issues.

 

Even the Chinese arcade retailers have their own version of an Rpi to jamma board which is getting good reviews.

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I was about to mention that. Pi is a nightmare to set up! Such a powerful device but so unuser friendly.

Yeah sure, you can just flash an image to the sd and turn it on. But making the slightest changes requires a 3" manual.

Adding shaders like CRT and applying it to all cores. Easy. Until you boot a game to find that it's running on a different emu, because whoever set up 'this' image decided to go another route. Oh what's that, this image doesn't have Net, let's try another. Oh but this one I don't like. Ok another. But yes, once you have out perfected, it's just a simple flash.

 

Pandora clones are getting better, and at a third the price of the genuine Pandora, it's a much better option. Unless you really want to play nba jam or MK hehe. Hopefully he releases a new board soon with better hardware.

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Pandora clones are getting better, and at a third the price of the genuine Pandora, it's a much better option.

 

Which one is the original Pandora? How can you tell the difference?

 

Does the original Pandora have issues or is it ok?

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

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Hey dude, I have the 2 most recent versions from the official 3A games.

Version 5 only does VGA or Hdmi whereas version 6 can do CRT

The emulation is fine if you aren't extremely fussy about a certain game. However there is no substitute for the real thing. I would have to say that the version 5 had less screen tearing but the input lag was more noticeable . I haven't played all the games of course and version 6 has 1300 games as opposed to 900 or so on version 5. Def worth the 100 bucks though

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

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Hey dude, I have the 2 most recent versions from the official 3A games.

Version 5 only does VGA or Hdmi whereas version 6 can do CRT

The emulation is fine if you aren't extremely fussy about a certain game. However there is no substitute for the real thing. I would have to say that the version 5 had less screen tearing but the input lag was more noticeable . I haven't played all the games of course and version 6 has 1300 games as opposed to 900 or so on version 5. Def worth the 100 bucks though

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

 

Thanks Brentos [emoji106]

 

I’m looking at the 3A Aliexpress website now. Do you need to add your own roms? Or do they provide a download link? I thought I might have seen this written somewhere but I can’t remember where?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

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Yeh so they send you the pandora unit and a blank USB. You download the games from the link and then you have to unzip it all and make sure you have the correct folders on the USB. Its fairly simple.

 

Hey mate

 

Did you end up getting it yet?

 

Tekken and MK issues put to one side, how do the rest of the games play?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

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Yeh man they are definitely worthy of the 100 bucks. I haven't played most of the games as there is 1300 on the latest one but most are fine. I did notice some input lag and screen tearing on some of the street fighters and some others, but yeh if your a fanatic of a particular game then buy the original PCB but for the rest these are fine.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Hey dude, I have the 2 most recent versions from the official 3A games.

Version 5 only does VGA or Hdmi whereas version 6 can do CRT

The emulation is fine if you aren't extremely fussy about a certain game. However there is no substitute for the real thing. I would have to say that the version 5 had less screen tearing but the input lag was more noticeable . I haven't played all the games of course and version 6 has 1300 games as opposed to 900 or so on version 5. Def worth the 100 bucks though

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

 

So, the Pandora's Box 5 does not have video out on the JAMMA connector? I wrote a seller about this, and he stated that it does have cga out on the JAMMA...confused.

 

 

https://www.arcadeshoppen.dk/pandoras-box-5-arcade-version.html

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As far as I know the 3A games Pandora 5s is HDMI and VGA only. Version 6 has CGA at 15khz which yeh is just through the Jamma cable. However I believe that there are copies of the 3A pandora board 5s from other manufacturers that will do CRT display , so maybe this guy is selling a copy. Maybe check the 3A website and check the specs to see if its the same one. The official 3A version 5 is a bright orange colour and version 6 is bright pink.

Any reason why you don't just buy from 3A? They are the original makers of Pandora , so the story goes.

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Thanks for your answer!

 

I would very much avoid paying the +25% of the product, +25% of the shipping plus a fee for handling :) So, a seller that can set the price low enough for dodging import taxes would be preferred.

 

The price in a Danish shop is 240 USD...at which it becomes tempting to go mame PC instead

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  • 2 years later...
As far as I know the 3A games Pandora 5s is HDMI and VGA only. Version 6 has CGA at 15khz which yeh is just through the Jamma cable. However I believe that there are copies of the 3A pandora board 5s from other manufacturers that will do CRT display , so maybe this guy is selling a copy. Maybe check the 3A website and check the specs to see if its the same one. The official 3A version 5 is a bright orange colour and version 6 is bright pink.

Any reason why you don't just buy from 3A? They are the original makers of Pandora , so the story goes.

 

For those who come across this, I've read that the PB5 that does CRT is actually a cloned PB4.

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Screen tearing is graphics distorting and not rendering smoothly. Its meant to be the graphics processor struggling to render image consistently. Consoles running emuelec and the like, might be able to overcome or reduce this by tweaking settings including frame skip. This cant be done on pandora boxes so you need to make sure you're purchasing a version that has enough go in it to handle the console/games you're wanting to play. If its just MAME then won't be as much of an issue. This might help - https://electroarcade.com.au/blogs/a...at-to-look-for
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