Pandoras Box 5

[Black IcE]

I was looking around a thread on another site about the Pandora Box 4x, and someone had posted some pictures of the up and coming #5. Just thought I would post them up here in case anyone is interested.

The images came from this thread.
http://www.jammaplus.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=77194&PN=80&title=pandoras-box-4-hacking

 

[JoeAwesome]

Most PB discussion has been in here. Just a heads up.

 

[Heinz]

That looks kinda serious, if it's an improvement then I might be game.

 

[Morden]

So, there will be two versions, one JAMMA, one VGA? Anyway, I never wanted to invest in one of these, since [again] it's an emu-box, and in that case, I might just as well go with a Pi. What's the appeal of Pandora boxes? Price and ease of use? Serious question. I've heard a lot of complaints about emulation quality. From people who know how these games should actually play, because YouTube noobs just eat that shit up and say it's da bomb, along with MAME cabs.

 

[RAZO]

So, there will be two versions, one JAMMA, one VGA? Anyway, I never wanted to invest in one of these, since [again] it's an emu-box, and in that case, I might just as well go with a Pi. What's the appeal of Pandora boxes? Price and ease of use? Serious question. I've heard a lot of complaints about emulation quality. From people who know how these games should actually play, because YouTube noobs just eat that shit up and say it's da bomb, along with MAME cabs.

They are ok if your just looking for a easy plug and play solution but they are from perfect. Some people can put up with filters, sound issues, bad frame rates, I can't. Much rather just play on a Pc Emulator.

 

[Morden]

Some people can put up with filters, sound issues, bad frame rates

Yeah, I want nothing of that. Pi does a much better job at emulating, anyway. But, I was once considering one of those emu-boxes, namely the shooter one. It has a selection of vertical shooters. Those Cave and Toaplan boards cost insane amounts of money these days. Especially the Toaplan ones.

It's called King of Air, and you can buy it for about $50 on Ali. Here's a video. Unfortunately, it's not 60FPS.

 

[RAZO]

Yeah, I want nothing of that. Pi does a much better job at emulating, anyway. But, I was once considering one of those emu-boxes, namely the shooter one. It has a selection of vertical shooters. Those Cave and Toaplan boards cost insane amounts of money these days. Especially the Toaplan ones.

It's called King of Air, and you can buy it for about $50 on Ali. Here's a video. Unfortunately, it's not 60FPS.

Yea, I don't know much about it. I just rotate my Dell monitor and play shtmups on my pc.

 

[Black IcE]

There is a Pandora Box 4 reseller that leaves the software open so it can boot between the Pandora Box 4, King of Air, and Xmame with lemon launcher all on the same board. As usual, the emulation isn't perfect but this particular board is fun to play with.

 

[CORY]

 

[Heinz]

So, there will be two versions, one JAMMA, one VGA? Anyway, I never wanted to invest in one of these, since [again] it's an emu-box, and in that case, I might just as well go with a Pi. What's the appeal of Pandora boxes? Price and ease of use? Serious question. I've heard a lot of complaints about emulation quality. From people who know how these games should actually play, because YouTube noobs just eat that shit up and say it's da bomb, along with MAME cabs.

It makes sense if you're hooking it up in a cab, it's cheaper and simpler than any groovymame or jamma pi setup by far if we're talking $80 or so. I'm not one to care about pixel perfect resolution emulation though, just make it play without frame rate or vsync issues and I'm alright. One day these boards will be able to do that... one day.

 

[FilthyRear]

So, there will be two versions, one JAMMA, one VGA? Anyway, I never wanted to invest in one of these, since [again] it's an emu-box, and in that case, I might just as well go with a Pi. What's the appeal of Pandora boxes? Price and ease of use? Serious question. I've heard a lot of complaints about emulation quality. From people who know how these games should actually play, because YouTube noobs just eat that shit up and say it's da bomb, along with MAME cabs.

Given all the problems someone can nit-pick about, my PB4 was the best money I've spent for something arcade-related in a long time. My only gripes are the wonky resolution on games that aren't CPS1/2/Neo, frame skipping on a lot of the vert shooters, and no NBA JAM.

I'll happily play HSF2T on my $70 Pandora, rather than shelling out $250+ for a fucking board.

 

[HDRchampion]

I'll happily play HSF2T on my $70 Pandora, rather than shelling out $250+ for a fucking board.

casual player

 

[FilthyRear]

casual player

How would you know?

 

[SNK416]

I saw that pandora 5 has a removable 8gb sd storage. So are we able to add Roms finally?

 

[Black IcE]

I have seen some listings on ebay for the PB5 lately for about $75. I am curious to get one and run it through a VGA to CGA converter and see how it does. I am curious, as well, if we can add new games to the USB stick.

 

[kevlo9]

I have the Orange PB5 (jamma version). The 8GB USB stick has 2 viewable folders....ROMS (.zip) and MOVIES (.avi). There is about 1.5GB free on the stick. I tried adding some ROMS but nothing new showed up. I'm guessing some tinkering is needed with the OS (SD card on the board).

 

[Black IcE]

I kinda want to get one of these new ones to mess with but have not yet. Is yours based off the PB3 and 4 hardware, or this newer platform ? If it is the newer platform, does it output HDMI & VGA only or does it do CGA? From every video I have seen, it does not do CGA.

 

[kevlo9]

I kinda want to get one of these new ones to mess with but have not yet. Is yours based off the PB3 and 4 hardware, or this newer platform ? If it is the newer platform, does it output HDMI & VGA only or does it do CGA? From every video I have seen, it does not do CGA.

The PB5 is newer hardware (different then the PB3 & PB4). The version that I have only does VGA and HDMI. I picked up mine from AliExpress for $69. From what I can tell if you had issues with screen tearing or audio from games (on the older boards), it is still present. Some games are now playable like MK. It has more options then the others and some nice features like configuring the button layout. So far, I'm not so sure it is a good upgrade form the PB4S+.

 

[SNK416]

Can you turn off for example kof clones? how many games are on yours?

 

[kevlo9]

Can you turn off for example kof clones? how many games are on yours?

Yes, you can hide games...my PB5 has 960 games loaded. I will say that the game list has improved over the PB3.

 

[Black IcE]

Bummer to hear the screen tearing is an issue. I was hoping it would have been improved. Sounds like groovymame is the way to go. I like the PB4 i have, as it can switch beween king of air, pb4, and mame on bootup.

 

[Morden]

I have the Orange PB5 (jamma version). The 8GB USB stick has 2 viewable folders....ROMS (.zip) and MOVIES (.avi). There is about 1.5GB free on the stick. I tried adding some ROMS but nothing new showed up. I'm guessing some tinkering is needed with the OS (SD card on the board).

I'm assuming it has those annoying videos on startup, and that's what the .avi files are. Does it still boot when you remove these files? If not, I wonder if these can be replaced with different files, compressed the same way, with one second of black, or something to that extent.

 

[kevlo9]

I'm assuming it has those annoying videos on startup, and that's what the .avi files are. Does it still boot when you remove these files? If not, I wonder if these can be replaced with different files, compressed the same way, with one second of black, or something to that extent.

Yes, still has that dumb startup video I haven't had a chance to mess with it much due to the weather (it's been super cold) and my games are out in the garage.

 

[kevlo9]

Bummer to hear the screen tearing is an issue. I was hoping it would have been improved. Sounds like groovymame is the way to go. I like the PB4 i have, as it can switch beween king of air, pb4, and mame on bootup.

Did you hack it or is there a special image that you can get?

 

[Black IcE]

Mine came stock from the seller that way. The seller also releases updated images with more games added. I think the highest game count he released was 986.

This is the facebook page of the guy I bought mine from - https://www.facebook.com/pb3aracde/