As long as it's a C2D processor DOSBox will pretty much run anything you throw at it. A netbook isn't ideal since the processor is ALOT slower than a regular laptop/desktop processor.

It really depends on the types of games you'll be playing, below mid-90's then a netbook is fine. Above the mid-90's then you need an regular laptop with a C2D processor.

hhhmmm interesting idea. i might be getting an old dos laptop for free myself but, the net book idea is pretty good.

I play mostly pre-1998 games. MoO2 is about the latest I would go, I think. And DosBox really seems to be taxed by it. At any rate, I am going to test how it runs on my wife's Samsung NC10 netbook, to see if an Atom can handle it.

I've seen some pretty decent deals on some AMD-based laptops though in the 15" range, which I THINK is what I would like, rather than a 10" screen which may be tough to look at for very long. Any thoughts? My understanding is that Turions run quite cool and are quite capable of running DosBox games and surfing, etc. My main concern is (1) it must be quiet and (2) cool running. I'm not sure a Core 2 Duo thingy is the best option - sure it may be a beefier proc and stuff, but I don't really need or want a beefy proc.

Depending on the games you plan on playing in DOSBox you may need a "beefy" processor.

If you can figure out a way to test the games you want to play on the laptop before you buyt it that may be the best option or if you can return the laptop if it doesn't perform like you want it to.

DosFreak wrote:

Depending on the games you plan on playing in DOSBox you may need a "beefy" processor.

If you can figure out a way to test the games you want to play on the laptop before you buyt it that may be the best option or if you can return the laptop if it doesn't perform like you want it to.

That is sorta confirming of my suspicions. The way DosBox runs, then, is to put a load on the proc such that it slows everything down within the DosBox environment, right? Hrmf. That is one reason why older hardware may be preferrable to a new machine (maybe the only reason).

No, it doesn't slow down the existing processor. It emulates a full PC. It needs a lot of processing power to do so. The more speed you require from the emulated processor, the more you need to have available in the host.

What would you consider to be a minimum spec for a laptop, with mid to late 90s dos games in mind? The consensus seems to be that a netbook can't handle the later stuff (my wife's samsung nc10, using ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix, suffered a dosbox crash when attempting to play MoO2).

Any modern notebook besides a netbook should be fine. The netbooks all run very wimpy CPUs (Atom, C7, Nano, Celeron M, etc) that do not have the guts to emulate more than about a mid-range 486. And although Atom sounds fast with its 1.6 GHz clock, that's not the case because the CPU is very slow per clock rate.

A notebook running an AMD Athlon / Turion or something from Intel that's not Atom will do fine. Make sure the clock speed is at least 1.6 GHz too.

Hi, i don't know whether the OP is still looking for it or not, but i have a good idea regarding a laptop/portable/mobile for Win9x games (and also DOS games inside Win98): an IBM Thinkpad T40/41/42. The ones with higher clockspeed Pentium M would run DOSBox pretty well too, but the point is that you can run full Win98 on it. I suggest you get the T42 with ATI MR 9600 if you value 3D gaming.

The support for Win98(SE) is great, you can get complete Win98(SE) drivers for the T42 here:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-55386.html

I have yet to see other comparable model with complete Win98 support.