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Okay, it's later. I haven't had the thing for long, but here's my impressions. For the record, I bought this one:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-A...272577041.html
There are knockoffs of this bootleg, of course. Don't trust ebay sellers.
The previous model, Pandora 2 was absolute garbage from what I'm told, as are the various Elfs, so I was suprised to hear that this is pretty good. It's basically a device that runs a custom build of Linux running Final Burn Alpha. Emulation quality is all over the place, but here are the highlights:
Device outputs 31khz VGA through a standard VGA port, 15 khz RGB through the jamma connector. No fiddling needed to switch between the two. It probably looks best on a VGA CRT with a SLG connected. It outputs 640x480, so results may vary with LCDs. 15khz looks pretty good too, but not as vibrant as a real board. I'm pretty sure VGA is the native resolution and it converts it to low res internally. Personally, I play mine on my PVM, the colors are better on it than my VGA monitor. The image is shifted a bit to the left, which is no big deal on my VGA monitor or on most arcade monitors, but my PVM doesn't have an easy way to shift the image to the right so I have to deal with a 1" black bar on the right, and the left pushed off the screen.
The Jamma connector isn't strictly jamma. 3 button games will work fine, or if you have the 4 and 5 buttons wired for Neo/Atomiswave/PGM use they will work also, but you'll need to do something to get pin 6 to work as it's on a pin that's Ground on Jamma. Jamma Nation X sells an adapter called the Atlas that will allow you to use a CPS1 or 2 kick harness for the extra buttons, which is what I use, but if you don't care about 6 button fighters you can just plug it up and go. The audio is mono from Jamma, but it does also have a stereo jack on the unit itself, I'd recommend using it if your setup supports it. Most games are mono anyway, but stereo games like CPS2 or Neo will only play one channel through jamma, it does not mix the two into mono. There is no way to access the normal service menu for the individual games, so you can't set audio output to mono from there like you would a real PCB.
Onto the games. The one major nagging thing that is true with all games is that there is some screen tearing in games that move from left to right. Mild annoyance, but it is there.
CPS2 games are what play the best on this. I do have a real CPS2 setup, and this is very, very close in sound and video. If I could just go into the service menu settings I might consider selling off my CPS2 multi. But it doesn't. This isn't a really big deal for me though, as I said I have a CPS2 rig.
CPS1 is second best, and the primary reason I bought this. The first game I played was Final Fight, and it did not disappoint. You won't confuse this with the original boards, but it is very good. All of the CPS1 games I tried work well, Final Fight, Strider, and the various SF2's. There are many more I haven't tried.
CPS3...it's on there, and it really shouldn't be. SF3 is playable, but there is constant frame skipping. It's okay for casual play I suppose but I'll just grab the DC.
Neo Geo I haven't messed with much since I have real Neo systems but it seems to be emulated well. Video looks a little wierd since the scaling isn't perfect like the CPS stuff but it doesn't look bad. The inability to go into service menu or Unibios settings is the buzz killer for me here. It has most of the Metal Slug series in milk mode and you can't change it.
Other games are hit and miss. There are a lot of good older vert shooters like DonPachi and DoDonPachi, Esp Ra De, the whole Strikers series, but it LACKS TATE. I guess because it's designed to go with a horzontal monitor it shrinks and loads them center of the screen like a home console port. The scaling is also atrocious. It does work though, and DonPachi plays great even if it isn't pretty. If they made a special version of this with just the vert shooters configured for a vertical monitor I'd buy it in a second. There are several PGM games too but I haven't tried them.
A few other random games: Galaga works well but is a auto fire hack and is missing the BOOM explosion when you die. Ms Pacman works fine but the speed version everyone prefers is HORRID. Donkey Kong is missing most of the sound effects. Turtles in Time plays great until the Neon Night Riders stage where it glitches out and is unplayable. Aliens seems fine but a little slow, not sure if that's emulation or if it's just a slow game. The Simpsons plays great, it uses the 2 player version.
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