Final small Pandora batch...

[EvilDragon]

Some of you might still be interested in getting a Pandora, and Askarus spent the last few days building the remaining ones!

This afternoon at 3pm German time (1pm UTC), the first of them will go online!

Based on the experience with the last Pandoras, they will probably sell fast (especially the 1GHz versions), so be fast if you want to grab one

We will add some more during the next week, but it won't be that many...
Also, we will offer Pandoras for with some flaws (i.e. non-working Bluetooth, etc.) for a reduced price. Those will all be Classic Pandoras so far.

Grab them here: https://www.dragonbox.de/en/27-consoles-

 

[Tanasinn]

I am tempted despite preordering a pyra.
Much thanks Ed and Askarus!!

 

[BlueMaxima]

Damn, if only I had the money.

 

[matzesu]

Too bad i allready have a Pandora..
And my money will goo to the Pyra..

But the verry last new Pandoras sounds pretty sad, but on the other side, its an end which leads to a new beginnining: the Pyra..

 

[mamemaniac]

Did Askarus also fix RMA Pandoras? I'm still waiting for my Rebirth.

 

[Askarus]

Did Askarus also fix RMA Pandoras? I'm still waiting for my Rebirth.

Yes.
Maybe it's the one we still have in the office.

I'll be at the office at Friday so if ED has no time to check it I'll do it then.

 

[TheOldOne]

Why do Pandoras always go on sale when I don't have spare money? (The crying smiley didn't work for some reason)

 

[uryllium]

Bam! Glad I managed to get one direct instead of a resale. This will tide me over until the pyra is good and ready.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Ocean112]

This will tide me over until the pyra is good and ready

Same here. I was at Camp Geiger then at 29 Palms when the pandora was initially taking orders so it'll be nice to finally get one.

 

[Taeko]

Whats your experience oft how much more you can do between the different versions? I think to get one, but the 1GHz is a litte expansive only to shorten the waiting time until the release of the pyra.

 

[benoitb]

Whats your experience oft how much more you can do between the different versions? I think to get one, but the 1GHz is a litte expansive only to shorten the waiting time until the release of the pyra.

I'd get the rebirth if it were me buying. The price is mire interesting and I don't care too much about DS emulation.

 

[Yoyobuae]

Thank you!!

I hated having my Pandora with cracked screen these last few weeks. The black blob keeps growing progressively making Pandora more unusable. And I have a trip coming up so I bought a 1GHz Pandora again.

Maybe a bit of a waste of money, but I'm not so sure about replacing the LCD myself (I could replace LCD cable, but LCD is taped hard into case, IIRC), buying full unit gets around that.

I plan to keep using Pandora as media player and general purpose tool, so it won't be completely obsolete once Pyra arrives.

 

[AVahne]

Damn don't have enough money for the 1 GHz model and now it's gone. The Rebirth seems to be best now but I'm not sure I have enough. For collection's sake and light usage I'll try getting one of those discounted flawed Classics. Just as long as it isn't a massive flaw. No bluetooth I can live with though since I assume I can just plug in a dongle if I really need it. BTW, does overclocking the Classic do anything to mitigate the slow performance of the 256 RAM? How about using a swap partition?

 

[TrashyMG]

BTW, does overclocking the Classic do anything to mitigate the slow performance of the 256 RAM? How about using a swap partition?

Yeah overclocking a Classic or Rebirth Pandora can speed things up, however If you need to use more than 256MB of RAM a swap file or partition won't speed anything up, it just prevents the program from crashing out. It would actually slow things down a bit, because your depending on caching RAM to slow SD card or USB memory.

 

[matzesu]

Hey mey CC Pandora dit his job pretty well until yet..
Ditnt tryd dreamcast, but some DS Games (the famous like Mario 64, New Super Mario Bros, Wario Ware Touch, Dragon Quest IX, ) work quite well, even whit only 900 mhz max..
So the Rebirth could be a good Handheld, even today..
Its a bit faster than my CC whit double Ram..
But im Happy when i get my Pyra, then i can try dreamcast finaly

 

[FBnil]

Whats your experience oft how much more you can do between the different versions? I think to get one, but the 1GHz is a litte expansive only to shorten the waiting time until the release of the pyra.

Well, if you like 3D games, then the 1Ghz will give you more FPS (as in: unplayable versus slow but fun). Also for movies, the VLC is spot on on the 1GHz (just download 480p from youtube works on both, but when you have a 720p... meh... even the 1Ghz can not decode that). How ever, I have converted some movies to 1GB size and they show pretty well. On 1GHz you can use VLC, and on the rebirth you use the super optimized smplayer2 (which will deblock a little bit less in exchange for fps).
For all other things, all models do the same. So emulation of Commodore64, Atari ST work ok. Personally, after using both though, I would always go for 1Ghz... however, with the Pyra looming, grab the cheaper one to get the experience... the "experience" is what counts and it is fantastic (being able to run so many things on a small device)... software repository for the win...

 

[matzesu]

Well if i look back to pandora preeorder day, whit the GPH Wiz also anounced, mybe also a Order for the wiz wouldnt bee a bad idea at this time, but everyone of us beliefed mr "wearing-furhat-and-fake-fell-off-roof-too-puplice-a-chinese-gamingtablet-and-bring-pandoraprojekt-too-the-edge-of-the-abbyss".. that pandora will take 2 Months..
But now i have allready a Pandora too shorten the waitingtime for the Pyra

 

[Taeko]

Well, if you like 3D games, then the 1Ghz will give you more FPS (as in: unplayable versus slow but fun). Also for movies, the VLC is spot on on the 1GHz (just download 480p from youtube works on both, but when you have a 720p... meh... even the 1Ghz can not decode that). How ever, I have converted some movies to 1GB size and they show pretty well. On 1GHz you can use VLC, and on the rebirth you use the super optimized smplayer2 (which will deblock a little bit less in exchange for fps).
For all other things, all models do the same. So emulation of Commodore64, Atari ST work ok. Personally, after using both though, I would always go for 1Ghz... however, with the Pyra looming, grab the cheaper one to get the experience... the "experience" is what counts and it is fantastic (being able to run so many things on a small device)... software repository for the win...

Thanks I decided to get my first experience with a cheaper one ;-)

 

[AVahne]

Yeah overclocking a Classic or Rebirth Pandora can speed things up, however If you need to use more than 256MB of RAM a swap file or partition won't speed anything up, it just prevents the program from crashing out. It would actually slow things down a bit, because your depending on caching RAM to slow SD card or USB memory.

Would the slowdown caused by swap affect apps that require less than 256 MB RAM as well or only when the Pandora needs to dip into the partition for the extra memory? I'm trying to understand if having a swap file/partition would cause the OS to ALWAYS use it instead of or along with the system RAM. If so then that's pretty troublesome....still might end up just getting a discounted/flawed Pandora since I can't spend too much money even though I really want a Pandora and because I may not use it for much more than emulation and light Linux gaming.....and light desktop apps.
Pssttt...can anyone link me to a post that talks about what kinds of Linux games ported to Pandora can be played on Classic, if there is an existing post? I would assume such a post would be buried beneath layers of other posts over the years or something, and the search bar isn't giving me any luck.

 

[TrashyMG]

Would the slowdown caused by swap affect apps that require less than 256 MB RAM as well or only when the Pandora needs to dip into the partition for the extra memory? I'm trying to understand if having a swap file/partition would cause the OS to ALWAYS use it instead of or along with the system RAM. If so then that's pretty troublesome....still might end up just getting a discounted/flawed Pandora since I can't spend too much money even though I really want a Pandora and because I may not use it for much more than emulation and light Linux gaming.....and light desktop apps.
Pssttt...can anyone link me to a post that talks about what kinds of Linux games ported to Pandora can be played on Classic, if there is an existing post? I would assume such a post would be buried beneath layers of other posts over the years or something, and the search bar isn't giving me any luck.

I've rarely noticed any degrade in performance when using a swap file on an SD card if it was using less than the 256MBs. But honestly since the Pandora doesn't have a large internal storage memory and I like hot swapping SD cards often, I stick to using a swap file instead of a partition. Someone made a simple tool that allows swap files to be enabled or disabled easily or should I say easier than remembering the command I would need to type in all the time... http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=swaptools-0.1-slaeshjag



Just to add, Most games will work just fine on a classic unit, even Notaz's native arm ports of Starcraft, Diablo II, even 3D things like Homeworld SDL, the scummVM and residual games (Grim Fandango) work fine and even operate below 256MBs. Some of heavier 3D games like the recent Serious Sam port, while it works fairly well on a rebirth consumes a tad too much memory and requires a swap file. Speed wise the Classic and the Rebirth are on par they have the same SoC, only the memory is what differentiates what can be used. No one really has put together a comprehensive list of what can work and not work on each unit, but generally it's noted by the PND publisher in the repository information. http://repo.openpandora.org/