Review: Blue Elf 309in1 Jamma PCB

Sounds like the Blue Elf II, not the original Blue Elf, right? I did one not long ago for a client...
 
yea its the second one, I have the first as well, so far this thing has far surpassed my expectations. I have been playing it all day and there havent been to many problems so far.
 
The only thing about it that bothered me were the fact that I couldn't put it on free play, and that they couldn't put a virtual dip switch access menu for each game (like MAME and the 48-in-1's have) so I could make specific changes to each game.

Oh, and the case isn't exactly made for easy mounting in the cab, either...
 
I am spending at minimum 5 minutes in each game.
*** My ratings are on a scale of 10, I don't really mean 10 as Direct PCB quality if you know what I mean, If I say 10/10 I mean its the best it is going to get as far as the emulation, I really feel if I put 10/10 I think its perfect.

did you read that? If you want your more than welcome to give your review. I am trying here. I apologize if its not perfect.

I feel most of these games run amazing, nothing noticeable in terms of the frame rate being slower or dropping. And most of them comparing to MAME I can NOT tell a difference.

Maybe for a "hardcore gamer" you would notice something when they are right next to the actual machine but I assure you walking up and playing most of these games at someone elses house, you would not know a difference.
 
I finally got a chance to wire a cab up for the Blue Elf 2 that I have and I have to say that mine sure doesn't run as good as yours does StreetzKing. As far as I can tell all of the CPS1 games run with lag especially the street fighter games.

I had a SF2 HF board that I sold in a cab because it comes on the Ble Elf board and after having played it on the Blue Elf, I wish I had kept it. Ghouls and Ghosts runs almost the way it should but I am very anal about my games and there is some slight lag in the side scrolling.

The CPS2 games I tried seem to run, if not perfectly almost perfect. Too bad I can't say the same about the CPS1 or CPS3 games.

Of the Neo-Geo games I tried out Metal Slug and one of the King Of Fighters. Metal Slug ran great while KOF was slow.

Here's my rating of the games I played. I'll rate them as Playable, Almost Playable and Unplayable.

Street Fighter Alpha 3-Playable
SF3 III- Almost Playable
KOF- Unplayable
SF2 CE- Unplayable
SF2 HF- Unplayable
Metal Slug- Playable
Ghouls and Ghosts- Playable teetering on Almost Unplayable

Next up I'll review some of the other games which I have original boards for and possibly even do a side by side video of the actual gameplay. I have owned a few CPS2 boards and played through them multiple times so I'm pretty familiar with how they're supposed to run so I'll check out SSF2, MvC, MSH v SF and post my rating on those along with some other Neo-Geo games that I have carts or boards for.

I haven't tried out the Cave shooters yet but I think those might run fine. If you're thinking about buying one of these boards for CPS1 fighters I suggest looking into other options.


Streetz maybe when I'm done checking out this board we should swap boards to see if my runs worse than yours or if they actually run the same? This will show us if in fact the Rocky quality control is as bad as I think it might be.
 
see this is what I don't know about, like I said I'm no expert but in my opinion some of them run amazing. I know the cps3 games are unplayable, but I feel my GnG never has a slight delay, keep in mind I cant get past level 2 hah but for the insane amount of times I have played level 1 and half of 2 I never ran into problems, one thing I find funny is super gng on snes lags, which is weird.

The king of fighters for me ran great if its like 99 or 98, but not 99+magic magic plus, haha the bootlegs arent good compared to the originals.

I find most of the sf2's even the bootlegs to run great and I play that game almost every day on xbox, mame, and actual hardware.


Like I said I don't have the hardware in front of me for a direct comparison, im just giving a personal opinion review. I mean if your looking for direct hardware replicas, then buy the real thing.
 
I know the cps3 games are unplayable, but I feel my GnG never has a slight delay,
GNG doesn't have any delay. What I noticed on mine was when you're running the system seems to not be able to render the entire screen fluidly. It runs at the speed it should but it almost seems to flicker at times. I love GnG and spent many dollars playing it growing up so anything less than perfect is a bit of a letdown.

I think we really should swab boards for a week or something to see if there is a difference between performance.

I find most of the sf2's even the bootlegs to run great and I play that game almost every day on xbox, mame, and actual hardware.
If you check my VAPS I do own the actual hardware for SF2, SF2CE and until recently SF2 HF. I actually have multiples of SF2 and SF2CE I just didn't list them because it's quite a few working and non-working.
 
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If you are ever comming over to the Austin area let me know. Id love to put that into one of my cabs and see how it runs.
 
I will do that. I have friends in the Houston area and get over there from time to time so I will look you up when Im there.
 
Well crap you are a lot closer. Im going to have to take you up on that offer. Id really like to see this thing with my own eyes before i made any decision on it.
 
I can attest to the cps1-3 games not running that great on the Blue Elf. My friend has one and the framerates are half of what they are supposed to be. There is a webpage somewhere that actually talks about the blue elf and how bad the street fighters play on it but I can't find it...
 
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