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Pandora Box

Vimster

By Vimster
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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amc

amc

Posted
Posted

Nah it looks great as is. I get the want for proper scaling etc but as you know these are just great for having tons of fun games dead conveniently. Well jelly of the two stick setup mind. Now get playing some two player Shock Troopers. 

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Nathan Wind

Nathan Wind

Posted
Posted

So many good games on this thing.  I've just melted away an hour and a half playing Pang, Final Fight and Undercover Cops.  Also found a couple of gems I hadn't played previously - well, one of them is Avenging Spirit which I've played on Game Boy but never realised was an arcade game!  It's really good. Possessing an enemy to carry on when you die is such a great mechanic.

 

 

 

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SeanR

SeanR

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, acidbearboy said:

Question for people who have one of these - is it possible to create a favourites list. The videos I've seen seem to split the roms between 3D and 2D, with the latter being one huge list! Can it be broken down alphabetically, by game type or what? Can you search at all?

 

that's the pandoras key, that has 20 or so "3D" games, mostly fighters, Tekken 3 and the like, and yeah, the one video review I watched was a side by side with the p'box and the main concern was the lack of options for managing the games list on the p'key.

 

mind you, if someone said "you dont need to build a jamma controller you can just plug in a usb stick and configure it" id be all over this, instead of the pi.

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  • 4 weeks later...
acidbearboy

acidbearboy

Posted
Posted

 

 

This is the one I have. Finally got around to playing it this week and although I am having fun with the 2D arcade games, there are a couple of little things bugging me.

 

1. It's stretched to full screen, not 4:3

2. There's a smoothing filter on the graphics, not original pixels.

3. There doesn't seem to be any way to search or save roms to a favourite list.

 

Can these things be changed? Where has good resources for these things online? Are they all generally the same inside, or will guides be different depending on the model? Cheers!

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Nathan Wind

Nathan Wind

Posted
Posted

There's a settings button on the Pandora board itself which gives you access to display resolution and that shitty smoothness setting.  Which version of Pandora?  6 allows you to make lists in the game editing menu by assigning a star to them so they display first, otherwise it also allows search by game type and by alphabetical order by pressing the P1 button in the game list, both of which are very useful.

 

https://www.arcadomaniashop.com/WebRoot/Store/Shops/es115644_ArcadomaniaShop/5B99/7CCB/C2D3/7551/5E8F/50ED/8963/4B1D/Pandora_Box_6_User_Manual.pdf

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acidbearboy

acidbearboy

Posted
Posted

I found an email address in the comments of that video I posted - it's an AliExpress seller called Miya (missbearr@163.com) who kindly replied with a couple of photos and a video explaining how to change the aspect ratio to 4:3, which I've now done. However, they said the graphic filter cannot be changed :(

 

I do not seem to be able to access any options in the game lists. There's not much in the main settings either, just show/hide options and the ability to delete games from storage. Here's a photo of the settings menu. At the bottom it says Ver 1.0.3d

 

 

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X_2_0

X_2_0

Posted
Posted

I'm running a Pandora 3 on my cocktail cab (courtesy of @Superquincy)  currently plugged into a monitor though as I can't find a way to flip the screen.

 

According to some sellers screen flipping is possible on the Pandora 3, but I'm not so sure.

 

 

image.jpeg

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  • 2 weeks later...
Nathan Wind

Nathan Wind

Posted
Posted

Anyone know much about scanline generators for VGA?  As far as I can gather they're intended for use at standard 640x480 resolution.  My monitor won't display that properly and just stretches it out so that it looks even worse than the native resolution of 1280x720.  The company that built my cabinet finally managed to send out a scanline generator after a lot of back and forthing, but it doesn't look great.  It's okay, but introduces a lot of flickering and distortion to the lines around the outer edges. Not sure if that's just a limitation of cheap VGA SLG's or if it's due to the resolution of the monitor really. Have sent an email to the guys that make the more expensive SLG-3000 to see what they say, but I suspect I'll be shit out of luck if I want to approximate a CRT on this LCD.  Not that it matters greatly.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
Goose

Goose

Posted
Posted

I have a Family Game box in an arcade machine - one of those 300-1 things. It's connected by a Jamma connection. 

 

Is it possible to straight swap it for one of these? 

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/original-Pandora-Box-4s-680-in-1-jamma-harness-Arcade-Game-cartridge-jamma-Multi-game-board/32806225801.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.96.32fd16bdmLcUZ7&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_5_10065_10130_10068_10547_319_317_10548_10696_453_10084_454_10083_10618_10307_537_536_10131_10132_10133_10059_10884_10887_321_322_10103,searchweb201603_56,ppcSwitch_0&algo_expid=77d38e43-fbba-4850-956b-d62b1b012a70-13&algo_pvid=77d38e43-fbba-4850-956b-d62b1b012a70&transAbTest=ae803_3

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mmmonkey

mmmonkey

Posted
Posted
On 09/02/2019 at 10:56, Nathan Wind said:

Anyone know much about scanline generators for VGA?  As far as I can gather they're intended for use at standard 640x480 resolution.  My monitor won't display that properly and just stretches it out so that it looks even worse than the native resolution of 1280x720.  The company that built my cabinet finally managed to send out a scanline generator after a lot of back and forthing, but it doesn't look great.  It's okay, but introduces a lot of flickering and distortion to the lines around the outer edges. Not sure if that's just a limitation of cheap VGA SLG's or if it's due to the resolution of the monitor really. Have sent an email to the guys that make the more expensive SLG-3000 to see what they say, but I suspect I'll be shit out of luck if I want to approximate a CRT on this LCD.  Not that it matters greatly.

 

 

How did you get on with this?  I might have a spare RetroVGA SLG in the loft - http://www.brunofreitas.com/node/36

 

the early version without the trim pots, but does include a Vsync switch which makes it compatible with more resolutions.

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Nathan Wind

Nathan Wind

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, hellbelly said:

How did you get on with this?  I might have a spare RetroVGA SLG in the loft - http://www.brunofreitas.com/node/36

 

the early version without the trim pots, but does include a Vsync switch which makes it compatible with more resolutions.

They got back to me and said it should do a better job than those generic Chinese things, but they did say it would still be fairly subtle at that resolution - I haven't yet got around to buying one.  Happy to throw some dollars your way if you ever dig it out.

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Goose

Goose

Posted
Posted

Is this what I'd be looking for in terms of converting what I have to what I need to run a Pandora 6?

 

https://www.ebay.com.au/i/153272103001?chn=ps

 

or this - 

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-Pando-Box-6-Converter-Board-wire-harness-Convert-Family-version-to-Jamma-version-28pin-Harness/32981096163.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.1.4150359eUYlBlF&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_5_10065_10130_10068_10547_319_317_10548_10696_453_10084_454_10083_10618_10307_537_536_10131_10132_10133_10059_10884_10887_321_322_10103,searchweb201603_52,ppcSwitch_0&algo_expid=efda7ca4-64be-4de8-a4d1-713a400f6d0a-0&algo_pvid=efda7ca4-64be-4de8-a4d1-713a400f6d0a&transAbTest=ae803_3

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Nathan Wind

Nathan Wind

Posted
Posted

Presumably!  Apparently the wiring for buttons 5 and 6 is different on Chinese Jamma so it affects the 6-button fighting games.  I'd personally go for something slightly higher quality like this sort of thing -

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/CHAMMA-to-JAMMA-Adapter-for-multi-game-boards-/223172635527?oid=222873414499

 

But whatever.  If it says Chamma to Jamma then I'd expect it'll do the job.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Goose

Goose

Posted
Posted

Arrived today. Plugged it in, booted up, and destroyed my screen.

 

I reset the device and managed to get it into the low resolution but now it'll only display in red, so it looks like I'm playing on a Virtual Boy. 

 

Joysticks don't seem to work either. And when I plug my old Family device back in, the screen looks just as bad. 

 

:(

 

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Zio

Zio

Posted
Posted

The red image could just be a dodgy connection to your screen. I'd try unplugging everything, then hooking it all up again, making sure everything is firmly connected this time.

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