Pandora Box 3 Multi-Game 520-1 PCB

c0nn0r

If I could have, My time back, I'd keep it in ma'
10 Year Member
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Jul 8, 2012
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Neither way of pulling video would introduce any lag, though, right? Just slightly sharper picture?

That's a good question that I can't answer. Would be good to find out.

What's support like for the RaspberryJAMMA/ArPiCade? One of my peeves with the Pi2JAMMA is that support and chat is limited to a facebook group, which makes for a terrible experience. There is a web page with info for Pi2JAMMA, but it lags behind the info in the facebook group. I have asked the developer why he does not have a forum, and he says he just likes facebook. I get the feeling the developer is a smart guy with electronics, but his people or organizational skills are not the greatest (I believe he's German). In the end though, it's a solid product. Just could be a bit more welcoming and useful to have a better organized way of sharing information.

I'll have to take a closer look at the RaspberryJAMMA/ArPiCade.
 

GohanX

Horrible Goose
20 Year Member
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Sep 28, 2001
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12,490
I don't have a cab but I do have a Retrotink which does 240p out. There is always going to be a little lag in emulation, but connected to a CRT I can't tell that there's any, feels like the real deal to me. The only real issue I've had is some arcade games with odd resolutions like R Type. They'll play fine but look funny.
 

kevlo9

New Challenger
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Nov 27, 2016
Posts
53
I picked up an ArPiCade (that Raspberry Pi to Jamma adapter) from highscoresaves at the end of December along with one of their pre-setup SD Cards. The Raspberry Pi 3 tends to struggle with PGM-era CAVE titles and can't play Tetris TGM2 without severe lag... but for anything older, it is really quite solid.

That said, I am glad I bought a pre-setup SD Card, as I tried to install the default ARpiCADE OS image and found it to be a huge pain in the butt to get even a handful of roms working properly.

I did the same. At first, I just picked up the ArPiCade and worked on my own image. Pretty straight forward (for the most part), but was going to take way too long to get everything setup so I picked up their configured SD card. I'm still working to get everything setup the way that I want it, but pretty happy,

The ArPiCade is cool and has allot of potential (if you want to put in the work), but for the price and ease of use the PB's are still tops (for the causal player). I still have a PB setup in a cab (mostly used for fighting games).
 

Shuri

Kula's Candy
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Joined
Jul 2, 2012
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294
I received mine earlier this week and tested it last night. My pandora is the 5s version, its advertised as supporting cga and vga, but only vga works.

I'm running this on a supergun, so I need to check out i'm going to get the extra buttons working.

I mean, for $50, it's a nice plug and play alternative. The resolution issue is there but it's not game breaking. I tried Cabal and Prisonners of War, two games I've been playing on the same setup, and yeah, the graphical difference is there. It's just.. a bit blurry. Maybe on an older crt or a regular cga screen, you don't notice much difference, but on my supergun+ossc+lcd monitor setup the difference is there.

Mortal Kombat was choppy, which is a shame! There is some screen tearing going on in some games.

The sound in Golden Axe is wacky, the music and sfx are very muted, but the voice samples are SUPER LOUD

I was surprised to see 4 direction joysticks games working fine. Pacman had no control issues with my PS4 Kai joystick, I was expecting the typical 4/8 ways issues when you switch directions, but it worked perfectly. I assume they are using modified roms? Or its just an emulation setting.

I gotta say that it's a very very nice collection of games, it has all the classics, and the odd weird titles (like those jackie chan fighting games).

It seems to have a mostly complete neo-geo set, so it's also an useful alternative to the multicards and SD setups out there, I guess.


it's not a bad piece of kit, but for the super hardcores like most of us, it's not viable.
 
Joined
Jul 16, 2002
Posts
195
I received mine earlier this week and tested it last night. My pandora is the 5s version, its advertised as supporting cga and vga, but only vga works.

I'm running this on a supergun, so I need to check out i'm going to get the extra buttons working.

I mean, for $50, it's a nice plug and play alternative. The resolution issue is there but it's not game breaking. I tried Cabal and Prisonners of War, two games I've been playing on the same setup, and yeah, the graphical difference is there. It's just.. a bit blurry. Maybe on an older crt or a regular cga screen, you don't notice much difference, but on my supergun+ossc+lcd monitor setup the difference is there.

Mortal Kombat was choppy, which is a shame! There is some screen tearing going on in some games.

The sound in Golden Axe is wacky, the music and sfx are very muted, but the voice samples are SUPER LOUD

I was surprised to see 4 direction joysticks games working fine. Pacman had no control issues with my PS4 Kai joystick, I was expecting the typical 4/8 ways issues when you switch directions, but it worked perfectly. I assume they are using modified roms? Or its just an emulation setting.

I gotta say that it's a very very nice collection of games, it has all the classics, and the odd weird titles (like those jackie chan fighting games).

It seems to have a mostly complete neo-geo set, so it's also an useful alternative to the multicards and SD setups out there, I guess.


it's not a bad piece of kit, but for the super hardcores like most of us, it's not viable.

Nice review, there are some for sale in my area complete in a cab and was looking for actual users. I am still not sure about it since I've noticed a bit too much blurryness on the lcd screen and it's 1800CDN$ too. Again thanks for your time!
 

ChrisB

Another Striker
Joined
Dec 28, 2012
Posts
325
Does anyone have an SD card backup of the pandora 4s backup they could upload please
 

SkullGrin

n00b
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Oct 30, 2018
Posts
5
Hey, does anyone know how to get different versions of a Pandora Box working on another?

I have two Pandora Box 5S unit's and i'm trying to get the image from one to boot-up on the other. Swapped SD cards and powered it on but, won't work. What's the deal here? They're both bootlegs using the same hardware, although one motherboard looks Nicer and Newer. I don't get what the hang-up is.
 
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ShootTheCore

Bead Banger
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Feb 11, 2015
Posts
1,498
The stock card has both a read-only boot partition and an encrypted main partition. I believe the encryption is tied to the board, so you can't hop cards between units.

That said, there's a guy that modified the image somehow to add more games. Take a look here:
https://www.facebook.com/pb3aracde
 

SkullGrin

n00b
Joined
Oct 30, 2018
Posts
5
The stock card has both a read-only boot partition and an encrypted main partition. I believe the encryption is tied to the board, so you can't hop cards between units.

That said, there's a guy that modified the image somehow to add more games. Take a look here:
https://www.facebook.com/pb3aracde


But these are bootleg Pandora units. Is the SD card image really tied/married to whatever board it's on? Why would the bootleggers care or go through that kinda trouble? It's not like this is official product from 3A games.
 
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ChrisB

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325
But these are bootleg Pandora units. Is the SD card image really tied/married to whatever board it's on? Why would the bootleggers care or go through that kinda trouble? It's not like this is official product from 3A games.

If you look at the 1st partition on the sd card, you will notice a file called 3A, try copying this file from your sd card to the new card that you are trying to boot.
 

edd_jedi

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Oct 28, 2018
Posts
167
So what's the latest version of the Pandora's Box now? It seems after 6, all of the 7 models on Ali Express are more like handheld consoles than JAMMA boards.
 

ChrisB

Another Striker
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Dec 28, 2012
Posts
325
So what's the latest version of the Pandora's Box now? It seems after 6, all of the 7 models on Ali Express are more like handheld consoles than JAMMA boards.

Pandora box 6 has just been released and is offical 3A product
 

SkullGrin

n00b
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Oct 30, 2018
Posts
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If you look at the 1st partition on the sd card, you will notice a file called 3A, try copying this file from your sd card to the new card that you are trying to boot.


When placing it into an SD card reader and viewing it in windows, i see no such file on the newer 1299 games SD card.

I do see stuff like that when i place the 999 games card in but, not the 1299 games card. It looks totally different. I'm sure the 1299 games image is a newer build/hack from the other one.
 

djjimmyjames

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Says it does cga now and works on crt, thats kind of awesome. The 5 did not do this so I am going to grab a 6 today.
 

aku

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Dec 31, 2015
Posts
834
I'm also looking for a PB4 / King of Air SD card backup or iso. Can someone upload?

the new pboxes come without roms, but you can dl them via link from their official youtube channel "3A Game" (check description). its for the pb6 but i am pretty sure it also works for the pb4 (only the pb4 supported games will be available)...
 

everten

Edo Express Delivery Guy
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the new pboxes come without roms, but you can dl them via link from their official youtube channel "3A Game" (check description). its for the pb6 but i am pretty sure it also works for the pb4 (only the pb4 supported games will be available)...

I need the entire file system and not just the roms. I believe the OS is on the SD card. The board will not boot at all without this.
 

Azathoth

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I need the entire file system and not just the roms. I believe the OS is on the SD card. The board will not boot at all without this.

Board won't boot without the signature file from your original SD card either.
 

aku

Loyal Neo-Disciple
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Dec 31, 2015
Posts
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Board won't boot without the signature file from your original SD card either.

i can only tell from my experience: dl all pb6 files from the link i mentioned on a new sd card and it works perfectly in a pb5s.

but i dont know how the older versions work & what files are needed. the pb 5s os is imho NOT on the sd card.
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
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Says it does cga now and works on crt, thats kind of awesome. The 5 did not do this so I am going to grab a 6 today.

I was turned off by the lack of CGA support so this is great but the question remains, does it run any better than the previous models?
 

everten

Edo Express Delivery Guy
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Sep 2, 2012
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i can only tell from my experience: dl all pb6 files from the link i mentioned on a new sd card and it works perfectly in a pb5s.

but i dont know how the older versions work & what files are needed. the pb 5s os is imho NOT on the sd card.

If you remove the SD card do you get any video?
 

munchiaz

Robert Garcia's Butler
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Nov 13, 2011
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1,299
any new info on these. Just got my setup running again, not sure if anything new and better has come along.
 
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