Pandora Box 3 Multi-Game 520-1 PCB

Azathoth

Galford's Armourer
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Jan 21, 2004
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459
Thanks for the response; I'm thinking about just getting one to try. I know that there is a blurry filter with non-CPS games (a result of scaling all games to the CPS resolution) but most of the time the CPS games are what I play anyway. I figure the worst that could happen is I end up selling the PB4 for a small loss...

I'll post up if I get one

The screen size issue isn't fixed on the PB4 either.

One of my cabs has a 19' VGA monitor in it. I tried playing a couple games on the PB4 through VGA last night and the filter applied to the few I tried made them absolutely unplayable. As mentioned before the filter applied to the VGA port is much different than that applied through the JAMMA harness. If I absolutely had to play it on that particular cab I'd run it through the CGA-to-VGA adapter I've got connected just to avoid those visuals.
 
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Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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What filters are you guys referring to exactly? I'll compare mine on my small LCD.
 

Vigormortis

Armored Scrum Object
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I think they're referring to the bilinear filtering on the PB4. It does this with all games on the VGA output and with all games except CPS1/2/3 out of the JAMMA edge. CPS1/2/3 games from the JAMMA edge are the only ones that look pixel perfect, but the 15khz JAMMA output requires a major adjustment in horizontal width.
 

Azathoth

Galford's Armourer
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What filters are you guys referring to exactly? I'll compare mine on my small LCD.

For the small amount of time I used the PB3 with the VGA out on a computer monitor the filter didn't seem very obtrusive (if at even used one at all).

If you hook the video up through the VGA out on the PB4 it adds an extremely blurry filter to the games I played. Played a couple matches of KoF '96 looks like it was painted with swabs of colored Vaseline compared to the CGA video output over the JAMMA harness even on the shittiest of CRT monitors. I have a VGA-only King of Air board and while it does have filtering it doesn't look to be nearly as heavy-handed, but maybe that is due to the art on those particular games or my lying eyes.

It probably doesn't make any difference, but I'll check tonight to see if the VGA-out filtering on the King of Air board running the PB4 SD card is the same when using an actual PB4.

Useless point, but the in-game exit menu you bring up by holding 1P start is completely different if you're using the VGA-out versus the JAMMA harness video.
 

FinalbossNYC

Zero's Tailor
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Mar 14, 2015
Posts
557
Help ! I finally found a shop online that has Blue Elf adaptors in stock (supposedly)but now I can't find a jamma to MVS adapter to piggy back it in to to play a PB3 in my mutislot cab. I looked on JNX but didnt see what I think I need available. Anybody have a trusted shop
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
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Help ! I finally found a shop online that has Blue Elf adaptors in stock (supposedly)but now I can't find a jamma to MVS adapter to piggy back it in to to play a PB3 in my mutislot cab. I looked on JNX but didnt see what I think I need available. Anybody have a trusted shop

I can make you one that works in an MVS multislot cab. Shoot me a PM and what other shop was selling adapters, I hope it's not like my design.
 

pixeljunkie

Whilst Drunk., I Found God., Booze = Bad.,
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I can make you one that works in an MVS multislot cab. Shoot me a PM and what other shop was selling adapters, I hope it's not like my design.

"This is the ORIGINAL Blue Elf Adapter, not a cheap imitation!" :lolz:
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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"This is the ORIGINAL Blue Elf Adapter, not a cheap imitation!" :lolz:

It's the original Elf adapter. I made mine after I got an Elf in a trade and didn't have any adapter to play it. I made my own with a fingerboard and the CPS2X board attached to it then decided to create my own after there was a demand for it. I actually didn't see his Elf adapter until someone emailed me showing his asking how to "fix" it and this was after I already fabbed mine.

LOL "Cheap" imitation. Which one of these looks cheaper on the base adapter?

adapter-compare.jpg

The new version looks like a copy of mine, I honestly don't care if they copied my better version. It's always good to have competition. When I made mine, I designed it a certain way, multi-purpose. Elf Adapter, JAMMA Voltmeter w/5v and 12v reads via switch, Negatron Support.

I've sold so many of the Atlas units, it consumed my time. I had to stop selling it for a bit to catch up on build backlogs.

The Neo Atlas is coming, not sure exactly when but sometime this year.
 

Electric Grave

So Many Posts
No Time
For Games.
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I'm always down for your inventions XX, I appreciate your work, no homo.
 

slai50

New Challenger
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Apr 21, 2006
Posts
56
For those who own the pandora king of air 51 in 1 CGA/15khz version, is there some kind of scaling or filter applied to the games that make the games a blurry mess? Or are the games pixel perfect with the occasional screen tearing?
 

everten

Edo Express Delivery Guy
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348
Anybody tried this Hack? I don't have a Bootleg PB3 or run Linux anymore
Pandora Box 3 Hacked Guide

This link is dead, but you can get directly to the page here: http://openthepandora.ovh/index.php?article2/list-694

My King of Air arrived and it is definitely a bootleg version. I'm trying to figure out how to add games. I'm digging around the files in Linux not seeing the list.dat file. I'm seeing tons of roms and references to PB4. Has anyone figured out how to hack the Pandora's Box 4?
 
Joined
Jun 11, 2015
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I know this is somewhat off topic, but you guys will know form my earlier posts that I love the PB3 for what it is. It's simple, and ready to go out of the box.

Having said that, I've been playing around with the Raspberry Pi 3, and I think I've found the best low-cost alternative to the Pandora's Box 3/4. I'm not going to say it's as simple, as it's not, it is a bit of a pain to configure it all, but if you do it right you can end up with something that runs CPS1/2/3 and NeoGeo titles with pixel-accuracy and no screen tearing.

If you output video from the Pi3 at 1920x240, push that through an HDMI->VGA converter (around $10), then straight into a JPAC. Then, in RetroPie you can set up a custom viewport and output at 1920x224. Since both the CPS-based hardware and NeoGeo divides cleanly, (1920/384=5 & 1920/320=6), you can have a single setup with perfect output for both. No screen-tearing either. As a bonus, you can run MANY titles that you obviously don't have on the PB3/4.

At the beginning I tried using the GBS-8100, but the video quality was just horrible! I almost gave up thinking this was a terrible idea, then I decided to try bypassing the GBS-8100 and found that it is indeed possible, it was never needed in the first place! The Pi will quite happily output 240p. For those interested, you can grab my config files from here, the 'custom' one being the most useful as you can use it to output any resolution you want from the pi:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/1r2patj6ko2b/raspberry pi config files.zip

Definitely a pain to set it all up, but I think it's worth it in the end. Here's a video showing the result I ended up with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKYFKjiO6bc
 
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Yodd

Iori's Flame
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Nice video.


The Rasp Pi 3 is an order of magnitude better than those shit Pandora's Box 3/4 units.



and lol at the GBS scaler. Those things are complete garbage in pretty much every situation.
 

GohanX

Horrible Goose
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Could those settings be used to output 240p to a pvm, using a VGA to bnc or scart converter or something?
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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Could those settings be used to output 240p to a pvm, using a VGA to bnc or scart converter or something?

You would most likely need to do HDMI>Component>RGB or HDMI>VGA>RGB. I've never tried one of those but heard they work fine.
 
Joined
Jun 11, 2015
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Wow... I was looking for something just like this. Thanks for sharing dude.
Glad that was useful. The only other thing that's worth pointing out is that you'll need an audio amp capable of driving 8 ohm speakers as the J-Pac does not have any audio processing capabilities. It provides two screw terminals for you to connect audio to, but you need to push the output from the pi through an amp of some sort. I'm still looking for a good option that I can power via jamma connector since most audio amps need high amperage, and the RPi3 has pretty high power requirements as well (~2.5amps).

Also, still trying to figure out how to make the emulation station menu look correct at weird resolutions like 1920x240. But it all works, in my opinion, far better than the PB3 does.

If you want to emulate the MK games, do note that the sound seems to screw up on MK3/UMK3 after a few rounds. Which is annoying, not sure if there's a way to fix that... Considering that MK2 is based on the same hardware, I think the same might happen there, but I've not run into this in the limited amount of time I've messed with MK2. Also note that the MK games output more than 240 lines so running it with 1:1 pixel accuracy isn't possible as far as I'm aware. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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GohanX

Horrible Goose
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12,490
You might try one of the little Lepai audio amps, they are about $20 and do a great job of driving small speakers. They do need at least 2 amps to drive them, and the more you have the better it works.
 

West

Mr. Big's Thug
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Posts
205
Nice one Raz! I was looking at the GBS option as well so it's great to see there's a way to go direct from the Pi without it. And thanks for sharing your config file. I'm definitely going to check it out.
 
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