Opening Pandora's Box - Are cheap All-in-one Arcade Fight Sticks worth it?
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
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All in one arcade sticks are everywhere. Fight sticks, arcade sticks, joypads and joysticks with thousands of built in game ROMS and emulators from Street Fighter to Mortal Kombat. But are they any good? Today we visit such a device, a Pandora arcade stick for two players and Mark and I give it a test drive, a review and a tear down. You'll find these on Amazon or Ebay under names including Kulukula 3003, TAPDRA 3D, ZEHNHASE 3D and MEANSMORE but they are all the same stick.
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●Chapters
0:00 - Intro
2:15 - Unboxing and Contents
7:35 - What is SurfShark?
8:29 - What's inside?
13:22 - Play Testing
19:11 - The Verdict
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#StreetFighter #Joystick #Arcade - Věda a technologie
so happy you seem to have teamed up with mark more lately, great episode!
China + Copyright = FATALITY SUPER COMBO FINISH...
+ babality 🤣
These are brilliant for a portable plug and play option requiring no technical knowledge. The Pandora games 3D is probably the pick of the bunch. For me they were the gateway to the rabbit hole and I've since built a couple of arcades with MAME and now Mister FPGA. Love the videos!
You're right these are brilliant 👏 My favourite games are Elevator action and Time Pilot 84 .
Looking forward to watching this while finishing work! Keep up the great vids
Thank you for the detailed review. My biggest issue was the input lag rather then the emulation power with my particular copy. VGA seemed to work better than the HDMI. Regardless, I think it has a great potential to build a cabinet around for casual family fun.
I got excited when I saw two knobs poking out after you two guys opened the flaps.
Great episode. You have reached television level production quality.
Except for all the glitches.
I have had one for a few years now and its amazing just to get out and have a blast on with a few beers, always planned to put it into a bar top case at some point.
"I see a couple of knobs..." LOL, that was too on-point! ;-)
I used to have a Big Knob.
Lol, the sarcasm in this video is off the charts... I enjoyed that too much; especially the reading of the marketing on the box.
What a relief, I was dreading you guys gushing over that cheapo thing, should never have doubted you. I do prefer the shiny red ends on your knobs though!
“Your turn to recap the whole unit” 🥰
Hey hey! Good to see Mark and Neil handling those big red knobs in the Cave.
I could see where it was going from the start, but after you have upgraded the parts, it should be a clever piece of kit for the cave, interesting and I bet it will stop some people being ripped off by this.
Thanks for doing this. I was recently looking at these.
Perfect timing on a Friday afternoon after work, wait, it’s a Thursday! 😅
If you find the right pandora box 3D board with a button on it, you can mod it to run emuelec. A lot of these Pandora’s are based on older pandora 6 models... I like using the amlogic s912 base chipsets.
I bought a couple, well two, over the years, the quality just varies so much on them, just went back to using Superguns again for arcade stuff.
Agreed, for a proper arcade experience a SuperGun set up is still the way to go - love my MVS's.
Too, many, comma’s ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
@@GoWstingray Grammar and punctuation Nazis unite!
Considering purchasing just for the case are they still £40 Squid ?
Looks like its about £100 on Ali Express if you want to wait about a month to get one
I could almost feel Mark holding back on the innuendoes 😁
Almost... a few leaked out especially towards the end 😆
If you're replacing all of the buttons and sticks, using it on a PC, and even replacing the sticker, you're basically just keeping the plastic housing and USB interface.
It's nice how it's pre drilled and everything though, and ends up cheaper than a stick with the parts included often. But really youd probably be better off getting two sticks and something else to run arcade games in a setup...
I recently ordered a Pandora enclosure and 2 sets of buttons for a similar build. The buttons come with 2 USB controller boards. Now for the brains, I use a Raspberry Pi 3B running Retropie OS (console emulator OS). and the result for MAME games is very good. As a bonus, the additional USB ports on the Pi can be used to plug in additional controllers for console games. Absolutely brilliant little rig for Xmas gatherings. All told I spent about 100 gbp and would recommend this for those who like DIY.
Awesome video. Always nice to see Mark
Looks very interesting. Lots of possibilities for that small outlay. 👍
You make a great and funny show together ... I really enjoyed it ... please keep doing that
Thanks Ali!
hello I have the same type inside, does the break work for you? me it activates but it deactivates only by the A button of the first player, is it normal? I think they plugged it in any way, in the io configuration test, the pause button only indicates that it presses the "corner" button at the same time, I don't understand.
A great video Neil as ever, really good quality one too. I'm not sure your friend wanted you to peel that sticker off though. Keep safe and all the best.
Congrats on picking up a lovely MiSTer case for £40!
Excited for the DIY upgrade, Put rolling wheels on the bottom of the stand and set the projector on it. less permanent.
I have the Pandora’s. Box 9 and I really like the picture qualities on these.
Hi thanks for the video very informative. Is it possible do you know to get a replacement fan for one of these (I own the exact model Pandora 11s) as my fan is very loud at startup but calms down after a while. The fan measurement is 1 1/2 inches x 1 1/2 inches and has a 2 pin connector and is exactly as shown in your video. Can you help please?
Nice video. But, did you try running this through VGA to see if the HDMI conversion was causing the screen tear? For 40 pounds, it is a very tidy unit.
I bought an Atari Fight Stick for mame and LOVE it. This is the single player model in 70s-style wood grain which, in addition to the usual joystick and 8-button layout, also includes a track ball, a weighted spinner, AND side-mounted pinball buttons. It is very well made, with high quality controls and enormous functionality. The original price was $200, which seemed pricey at first sight, but actually is pretty fair considering the quality, functionality and appearance. I actually paid $80 for an "open box" (but unused) from MicroCenter. They had several at the time, and now I wished I had ordered more. Sadly, it is no longer manufactured and I cannot find them anywhere now. In comparison, I also have a couple of Atgames fight sticks (basic joy/8-button design). They are decent quality, but they are basically "Camaros" compared to the Atari's "Corvette".
The gamma differences when you showed them side by side with mame, actually comes out in favor of the pandora stick. Arcade monitors are calibrated with a different gamma settings than what you see on your flatscreen, and adding a gamma adjustment is actually a way to get them to look closer to the intended look, not the other way around. Not having an option to disable it would be the only possible bad aspect there, from what I saw in the video, as its certainly not always necessary/beneficial.
I got the 4s+ a few years back for £120, it's pretty insane how the prices are going down yet the hardware is being updated vastly. Playing any 3D fighter was a pipedream on the 4s+. If the 11 is anything like previous hardware, it probably uses a Dual Shock 3 controller board and in my experience does indeed work through usb with a PS3 but you'd have to stick to games in which remapping the buttons is an easy feat. When it came in the mail, a friend of mine and I played on the actual unit itself for about 10 minutes before we chucked it on MAME on the PC. You can indeed hook the sd card up to linux and change some of the roms but it's a whole other faff of its own. I've seen some pretty cool Pi mods for it online.
Depending on your capabilities and what you might have lying around the house it can make a lot more sense to make your own arcade machine. That way you can control what kind of quality you are getting and possibly save some money. Things like older smartphones or PC's can be great bases for an emulation machine. Otherwise many of these all in one machines can be easily upgraded with better sticks, buttons and the like. There are also quite a few different versions of the Pandora box units with different capabilities (the Pandora Box 3D is currently the best version as far as I know). The Wicked Gamer and Collector does a lot of reviews and comparisons for people wanting to know more.
The way I would suggest most people to go is to get something like an arcade style joystick and connect it to an old smartphone (a 2 year old smartphone is generally much more powerful than the SOC's in these kits) with a USB C to HDMI solution allowing it all to go into a TV. From that point it's just a matter of loading up your own emulators and ROM files.
Great box to use for a pi arcade machine. I was looking at trying to get the single joystick case only (got no mates) and build a pi arcade machine into it.
Hi you guys I just bought a pandora's box from Amazon but am having issue. On the main menu it's asking me to insert a game disk, so I'm stuck on this menu screen
Do you guys have an update? I am interested in the Pandora's Box or is it better to build one yourself using a PS4 or something?
Hi my pandora box X plus settings has no options to change language from korean to english?
Anyone knows how to solve this issue??? Thanks alot!!!
When you plugged the arcade stick into your PC, was it registered as a XInput device or a DirectInput device?
"My knob was bagged... I removed it; pulled it right off."
That did it for me a classic!!!
Can you recommend a good plug n play to the TV that has everything from arcade to like ps3 era?
Does anyone know why my screen goes black about every 5 minutes or so on my newly purchased Pandora’s box? Any tips to fix this?
I bought 2 Pandora boxes does anyone know how to connect them with a USB cable? Because I tried but it's not working and I tried different cables
You guys know how fix it my stop working after one week in the inside is light red blinking
Is there a newer updated version of this or something similar with better graphics, etc?..
Which guns did you use to play operation wolf? Any link to purchase?
would hooking one of these to a CRT get rid of the screen rip ?
Can you play the games with only the mainboard and putting a usb controller with the USB port?
I nearly bought when I was living in Australia. Jaycar started carrying an older model Pandora's Box
Does this have all the old street fighter and mortal Kombat games and is it good
Can you save or unlock new character in the fighting games plz help
For 40 quid, thats an excellent project box. I would use some cheap daemonbite encoders to make it lagless with quality stick and buttons, and perhaps drill some side holes for pinball buttons as well.
Been meaning to do a pinball mod on my Xbox 360 arcade controller, but never gotten around to it.
Where could I get this for £40? Looks quite good for my kids.
Can someone tell me if alien vs predator arcade game is on this and if it isn't which one is it on other than that arcade thing Capcom put out a few years ago
I trash-picked a 14'' Acer plastic job with a broken screen and some damaged connectors in January. It boots nicely, if noisily, if I clip on 19V to the legs of the power connector. There should be ample room in one of those "Pandora" fight sticks for it, a hd and a less whiny cooling solution. It sports a 6200U and 4GB soldered DDR3 (and a free socket), more than enough for the games I enjoy. It's something to do at least till I get that shot. :)
Do wonder you tried plugging a keyboard (or mouse) into one of the A ports and see if you could get into something more than the up front UI.
If it was running Linux it may well be possible to jump to a terminal using alt and the function keys.
Did this device offer arcade quality for the games or are they presented in console form?
can you access the Debug menu for Difficult on each game? unblock something even cheat codes ???
Got to feel that Mark's lockdown hair flick is a flex to Neil.
lol
:flicks hair:
I can see a couple of Knobs... enjoyed the video, looking at getting one of these for the kids :D
RMC&MFS, ultimate combo!!
This quickly turned into an innuendo special, perhaps 'Carry on Arcade stick'
Not arf!
Hi, can u emulate other console on this? Like n64 or psp?
Great video again guys... have you got a link to this unit...????
When the unboxing music ran I expected them to jump into super fast build mode ;)
Haha, me too :)
can you use different emulator software on it like Batocera linux on it
Am I the only one that immediately thought about building my own arcade cabinet around one of these with flat screen monitor to basically make my own modern HD arcade?
Mine went complete black. How can I fix this
for screen tearing, wouldnt switching to VGA prevent this? i mean , these games were not designed for hdmi / high rest , they were played on 480i/p whatever CRT monitors ...
I love ur cave...what are behind the camera?🤔
Just to be clear, the game at 14:39 is Street Fighter III: Third Strike and not one of the Street Fighter Alpha games. Carry on :)
I spotted that as well, I was kinda impressed it was running it TBH if it is indeed full speed, a hacked SNK MVSX Home Arcade apparently struggles with SF3.
The game worked fine, outta nowhere it started taking forever to load games and now it freezes on the loading screen I’m so mad because there’s nothing on the internet or CZcams on how to fix it, someone help please
I have this same one. I mounted it into a bare pole position cabinet. I tried this on my 4k TV, and on a monitor. I found it looks better on a monitor than the TV. The monitor is connected via the serial port as I bought a factory second that never had the HDMI soldered to the board. I was going to fix it, but I found the display was better with the serial cable anyway. I can't say if its the monitor vs TV or the cables that make the difference.
Where was this purchased from?
At least one that I bought a few years ago didn’t even have the option to turn off the crappy smoothing. But they are great for taking to a party, for people of a certain age like me. What I definitely wouldn’t want is an arcade cabinet built around a Pandora’s box, which seems to be appearing a lot on eBay.
Given the range of games nowadays, it’s definitely “Jack of all trades, master of none” - investing more money/components in it seems counterintuitive though.
Where do i put the coins ?
2:25 wasn’t expecting the GoodTimesWithScar music
That SBC is almost certainly a completely standard off-the-shelf part. I'm impressed with the number of GPIOs, too (looks like the arcade stick is only using about half of them). It'll be running a hacked-together Linux with an equally hacked-together, old and buggy version of MAME, because they always are, but it would probably be really easy to install a proper Linux distro on it with a more recent MAME. Booting from SD card makes them really easy to hack. If these boxes are common enough there may even be some community support for that.
The H2+/H3 SoC is supported by mainline Linux since there are other SBCs using it (I actually have an Orange Pi Zero that has exactly the same Soc as the Pandora box in the video), but I believe you would need to adapt some things to the characteristics of the board (the type and speed of RAM, GPIO, etc.). I don't know about any community efforts to support these boards but it could be possible and there are already distros like Armbian that support Allwinner based boards.
@@JORGETECHJorge Thought you may like to know that Lakka support the Allwinner H SOC series with their RetroArch emulation software.
Pandora 3D series run on Android + RetroArch. Older Pandora Boxes run on Linux + MAME + FBA (due to IGS PGM emulation is not as good as FBA back then).
The so-called "Retroid handheld console" also runs on Pandora 3D board, but there are versions that runs AOSP (rather than crappy Pandora customized Android) due to so many players requested that.
Nice work!
I'd like to pick one up... but its a nightmare knowing which one to get given there are so many cheap knock-offs. Anyone recommend a good seller?
Did I miss the link to actually buy one? Or search Amazon
How do you make it look so good ?
I purchased one and let me tell you the picture quality is trash I'm still trying to figure out how to improve that , because even though the picture quality is trash I still like it .. can someone help me with this matter ? Please ...
But, aren't those sticks and buttons situated for left-handies? Not sure about arcade machines, but on me ol' Commodore I would definitely use the stick with the right hand and the button with the left.
Great Video, Would be good if it had a rollerball in the middle for paddle games.
Lol I am just started looking at parts to build my own arcade using a raspberry pi. And I see these pandora boxes all around 😄😂 finally I get to hear about it
Wicked gamer has a lot of pandora reviews. Mostly a mixed bag. If there's a system that you want to emulate beyond 16 bit you mileage may vary.
Online I only find £200 ones. Can someone please send a link for a cheaper price?
What is the song at 2:18?
Ive seen people change the internals with an RPI 4 booting to Emuelec and running Arcade and Dreamcast. The cheapest Ive seen these go is £90 on ebay.
Just discovering this video. Is there a part 2
Did you decide against a follow up video in the end?
Great vid!
Great review!!! ...I was about to purchase this trash, but you made me change my mind !!!
i had this on in the background and for a min i thought that joe Wilkinson was in the cave. Dude sounds remarkably like him
I'll totally take that compliment!
What is the best box out now? I want to buy a good one.
You know it's going to be a special video when Mark shows up. :D
Haha! Cheers Jim!
Mark is certainly special
I'm excited as Neil said he's looking to bring Mark in as a permanent fixture to the channel. Always enjoyable videos
@@RMCRetro special needs ahaha
Is Mark Penfold to Neil's Dangermouse?
Found so many identical units online for 150+ saying anything under £100 is a cheap knock off even though they seem to have the same cables down to the 2 spare buttons , don’t know anything about them but for £40 it’s definitely worth a punt, do you have a link for this product?
How do people get around copyright of these games?
Thank you for the video. I decided to check it out after watching an ad. These scumbags were selling for $249.99.
I wish somebody could tell me how you do two players on this thing.
Put in sanwa parts, 2 brooks fighting boards and pi4 retropie in the center, that would make it a decent setup.