Compaq QC43

Had some fun downgrading a notebook to XP and checked out it's gaming capabilities.

This should work with any AMD APU notebook.

The notebook in question is a Compaq QC43 with AMD E-300 APU that comes with a Radeon 6310.

Compaq doesn't support XP on this machines, but I used Drive Booster and it identified and installed all drivers, including network, card reader and all that stuff.

The SATA controller is set to AHCI, no BIOS option for IDE, so I used a USB floppy drive to load the AHCI driver.

Driver Booster installed the AMD graphics driver, but without CCC, so I used Slim Drivers, that one gets you the CCC.

The screen is 1366 x 768 glossy, which is perfect for 4:3 1024 x 768 aspect ratio retro gaming.

I can't remember the benchmark results, but a tuned up Pentium 4 was faster. Still, a lot of games will work on it just fine.

The fan can get a bit loud, although the APU is low performance, it does seem to draw quite a bit of power. RAM can be upgraded to 8 GB and the HDD is replaceable also. Only one wire for wireless, but it gets the job done.

IBM Thinkpad T42

This is a great laptop for Windows Millennium, or 2000/XP if that's how you roll. It's a Pentium M laptop. It usually comes with a Radeon 7500 or 9000 and typically has a 1024x768 monitor, can support up to 2GB SO-DIMM DDR1 RAM and both its ethernet and wireless cards have Windows Millennium drivers.

IBM has a great specs page here.

https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/documents/migr-57839

Dell Latitude D600

This is another great Pentium M laptop, good for Windows Millennium or 2000/XP. It tends to share hardware with the Thinkpad T42, but the main difference is both the ethernet and wireless cards are made by broadcom, which are a bit harder to get working on Windows ME.

Dell Inspiron 8000

Unlike the above models, this is a more traditional Windows 9x laptop, it usually comes with a Pentium III-M and an Nvidia GeForce 2 card. Mine also has an ESS Maestro 3 audio card. What makes this machine great is its giant 15" monitor, which can do a max res of 1600x1200. It also has a standard CD/DVD drive bay on the side plus two in the front, usually one for a floppy drive and one for the battery. Technically, you can put two DVD drives in this laptop. Only downside is it weighs almost 9 pounds.

I have done serious gaming in the past on a Compaq Evo N610c (P4-M 1.8GHz, Mobility Radeon 7500) and on a IBM Thinkpad T42 (P-M 1.8GHz, Mobility Radeon 9600). Both had Windows XP installed.

When I say "serious gaming", I mean that at the time they were the primary machine I used for whatever games I was playing. I've also played some on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (C2D 2GHz, Mobility Radeon X1400), but at that time I already had a primary desktop for gaming, so the laptop was only used casually.

The problem with a gaming laptop is that it is not in itself sufficient. Gaming experience is 50% core PC components, and 50% peripherals. In fact, I'd say that as long as you are past a certain required performance level, it's 90% peripherals.

Laptops don't cut it. They never have and never will. Most of them have crappy TN screens (crappy even by TN standards). My T42 and T60 were exceptions as they both sported 15" SXGA+ IPS screens, which were great.

Laptop speakers are weak. They can only be good in comparison to other laptop speakers. Even a most basic $10 2.0 desktop set will be better. Always. However, you can use headphones.

I have never encountered a laptop that had a keyboard good enough for gaming. Most of them are awkward in terms of layout, and even those that are somewhat OK, have a tendency to jam if 3+ keys are pressed simultaneously. The built-in pointing devices (whether trackpoint or touchpad) are also inadequate for any serious gaming.

So, to get a good experience, you will need an external mouse, keyboard, speakers, and probably monitor. At that point you should ask yourself why you are not just getting a desktop.

notsofossil wrote:

IBM Thinkpad T42 […]
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IBM Thinkpad T42

This is a great laptop for Windows Millennium, or 2000/XP if that's how you roll. It's a Pentium M laptop. It usually comes with a Radeon 7500 or 9000 and typically has a 1024x768 monitor, can support up to 2GB SO-DIMM DDR1 RAM and both its ethernet and wireless cards have Windows Millennium drivers.

IBM has a great specs page here.

https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/documents/migr-57839

My T42 has a Mobility Radeon 9600 with 64MB VRAM IIRC and the high-resolution 1400x1050 SXGA+ screen - not bad for Windows XP games!

notsofossil wrote:

Dell Inspiron 8000

Unlike the above models, this is a more traditional Windows 9x laptop, it usually comes with a Pentium III-M and an Nvidia GeForce 2 card. Mine also has an ESS Maestro 3 audio card. What makes this machine great is its giant 15" monitor, which can do a max res of 1600x1200. It also has a standard CD/DVD drive bay on the side plus two in the front, usually one for a floppy drive and one for the battery. Technically, you can put two DVD drives in this laptop. Only downside is it weighs almost 9 pounds.

I actually have the successor model, the Inspiron 8100. It has very similar specs, mine having a PIII-M 1.0GHz, 512MB PC133 RAM, and a GF2Go 32MB card, and, again, an SXGA+ screen. And 98SE, of course. Interestingly, you can actually upgrade the video card in these machines, all the way up to either a GF4 440 Go or a Mobility Radeon 9000, both with as much as 64MB VRAM. At least, I think you can; I've never tried it on mine. And yes, it does weigh a ton.

While I'm here, I should mention the HP EliteBook 8730W, which I think is really good for late XP-era games. Mine has a C2D T9900 3.0GHz with 4GB RAM and a Quadro FX 2700M with 512MB GDDR3 VRAM. It's almost perfect, having decent-enough speakers (no subwoofer though) and a really nice keyboard. The only real drawback is the 17" WUXGA 1920x1200 screen, which is actually kinda dim, a fault that seems to be common on the non-DreamColor UXGA screens. On the other hand, the size can be considered a plus for games, being 17", though you will be dealing with a hefty beast, weighing around 8 pounds. There are options for a better video card, the FX 3700M with 1GB VRAM, and better screen, this model being the first EliteBook to have the DreamColor screen as an option.

Does the 8100 come with Wi-Fi? The 8000 doesn't but can take a Wi-Fi card, though there's only one slot so you have to trade out the Ethernet/Modem card.

I think the only difference between the Inspiron 8000 and 8100 is the installed options. You can put the 1 GHz CPU / 512 MB / GeForce2 GO into the 8000 and it will be functionally identical to the 8100. This is what I did with mine, which originally came with 750 MHz / 128 MB / Mobility M4.

dr_st wrote:

So, to get a good experience, you will need an external mouse, keyboard, speakers, and probably monitor. At that point you should ask yourself why you are not just getting a desktop.

Let's look at the downsides of a desktop. You need a desk or some other permanent place to set things up, you need the desktop tower itself (extra PITA points if you go full size ATX), a keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor, an ethernet cable for networking if you don't have a wireless card and numerous other extras. If you're trying to configure an MS-DOS desktop, then remember to make room for MIDI hardware if you really want that extra cherry on the cake. Extra PITA points for you if you decide to ditch the case entirely.

You see, not all of us have desk space at home for this kind of thing. I have hit my maximum of 5 desktop computers. Three PCs, one eMac and one Apple II. That and I simply cannot find PC cases in my area. Because I have moved over to laptops to continue my computer hobby, I can have stacks of laptops that are functionally identical to desktop systems, but have the advantage of not taking up much space and being self-contained. The other nice thing is I can take my laptops anywhere, they don't have to be stuck at home at all times.

These are very different subjects. I myself have a few desktops, and several laptops. More laptops then desktops, for obvious reasons. The downsides of desktops are well known. For gaming, though, they still have the advantage. By the time you have configured your laptop to give similar experience, it takes almost as much space as a desktop, costs more and has less processing power.

I don't know about that, First Person Shooters and RTS games are still quite playable on laptops, I have no trouble using the little joystick in the keyboard. Besides, when we're talking about old PC games, you don't need much power. A Pentium M era laptop can run just about any early 2000s PC game.

I actually have a friend who has a Lenovo ThinkPad who can get around quite well using nothing but the TrackPoint for games like TF2 and other first-person titles.

Here's my picks - although I focus more on windows 98 compatibility - all have 4:3 / 5:4 square LCD displays:

Dell Inspiron 8100 and 8200

- Pentium III (8100) or Pentium 4 mobile (8200)
- Geforce 2GO, Geforce 4GO or Radeon 9000 (depending on model) - REMOVABLE propriatary format video card so it can be swapped out for any of the afformentioned models!
- 2 DDR slots
- some come with win98 compatible wi-fi
- FDD + CD-ROM
- very well built
- some models come with a 1400x1050 LCD
- you can run late dos games on it as well

HP nc6000 / nc8000

- pentium M cpu up to 1.73GHz
- Radeon 9000 or Radeon 9600
- 2 DDR slots
- 14" or 15" display with great scaling
- pretty well build

Compaq N800v

- pentium 4 M cpu
- Radeon 7500 or radeon 9000 IGP
- 2 DDR slots
- 14" or 15" display with great scaling
- more reliable than the NC6000

^^^ these machines were business oriented so lots of them were sold, and lots are available at recycling centers (in working order, mostly just missing the HDD) or second hand sales / refurbished PC shops. They are cheap and easy to find.

Toshiba Tecra M2

- harder to find then the Dell / Compaq / HP laptops
- pentium M cpu up to 1.73GHz
- Geforce FX 5200 GO with 64MB
- 2 DDR slots
- 14" display
- very well built

notsofossil wrote:

I don't know about that, First Person Shooters and RTS games are still quite playable on laptops, I have no trouble using the little joystick in the keyboard.

It is possible, but you would be severely handicapped in most cases of FPS against someone using a mouse. RTS is probably fine. If it's just the mouse, it is less than a problem, because an external mouse is just one small thing.

When I think of a "gaming computer" though, it needs to be a computer adequate for all kinds of games, not just specific ones. Try playing Mortal Kombat on a laptop keyboard, for example.

Plus there is the enjoyment factor, which is highly dependent on screen size and quality, and speaker power and quality.

If processing power is not an issue, then a great thing can be a laptop with a docking station connected to external peripherals. I have such a setup currently, and I like it a lot. However it does not take up that much less space than a desktop.

I just need an external mouse, the notebook keyboard works fine for me.

The notebook graphics cards always confuse me, in the sense of not quite knowing how they stack up against desktop cards.

It's really nice seeing notebooks with 1920 x 1200 screens, but it takes a beefy card to run games at that resolution.

t42 or t43 look interesting for win9x/dos gaming. is the 14" display as god as the 15.4 ?
is the lpt printer port a real one? 1541/zipdrive/dac/interlnk
what about a gameport?

dr.zeissler wrote:

t42 or t43 look interesting for win9x/dos gaming.

For DOS - not really. Audio device is not DOS-compatible. For Win9x/WinXP - sure.

dr.zeissler wrote:

is the 14" display as god as the 15.4 ?

No. Only the 15" SXGA+/UXGA displays on these models are good (IPS). And even they are not so good for gaming, because the pixel response time is pretty high compared to modern-day LCDs.

dr.zeissler wrote:

is the lpt printer port a real one? 1541/zipdrive/dac/interlnk

Real one, as far as I know.

dr.zeissler wrote:

what about a gameport?

No such option, as far as I know. But again, for Windows you don't really need one.

notsofossil wrote:

Dell Inspiron 8000

Unlike the above models, this is a more traditional Windows 9x laptop, it usually comes with a Pentium III-M and an Nvidia GeForce 2 card. Mine also has an ESS Maestro 3 audio card. What makes this machine great is its giant 15" monitor, which can do a max res of 1600x1200. It also has a standard CD/DVD drive bay on the side plus two in the front, usually one for a floppy drive and one for the battery. Technically, you can put two DVD drives in this laptop. Only downside is it weighs almost 9 pounds.

^this. When I think 98 and XP gaming I think 4:3 displays. Laptop screens are small enough, I don't want to see borders when running older 4:3 only games.

One problem with the 8000/8100/8200 series seems to be the speaker cans and 7.2v battery pack under the palmrest. The speaker cans go bad for some reason and refuse to work whatsoever - I have two 8200 machines - both with the same exact problem. Then there's the 7.2v battery witch loves to leak.

HP NC6000 / Compaq N800- some NC6000 machines develop problems due to excessive motherboard flex, so be carefull and test it out thoroughly by picking it up (while on) and flexing the case a bit. If it shuts off, don't buy it. The N800 doesn't have this problem, but the rubber finish on the palmrest is so crappy it turns into goop on some machines. This can be remedied by cleaning the whole thing with nitro based pain thinner.

dr.zeissler wrote:

t42 or t43 look interesting for win9x/dos gaming. is the 14" display as god as the 15.4 ?
is the lpt printer port a real one? 1541/zipdrive/dac/interlnk
what about a gameport?

the video card on the t43 is not really suited for win9x games and the machine is too fast for DOS. It lacks win9x drivers and it's too slow for winXP games. Also the LCD does not scale properly, leaving about 1/7th of the screen black at low resolutions. Stay away from these.

The T42 has the same LCD scaling issue at lower resolutions as the t43, but has a radeon 7500 / 9000 / 9600 witch are great for win9x games. If possible, try to find a machine with the 1280x1024 LCD since the larger the resolution the more obvious the scaling problem will be.

[EDIT] - about the Inspiron 8000/8100 - these can be slowed down a bit from bios by enabling CPU battery save function (even when plugged in). A 600MHz model should slow down to 200 or 300MHz (if I remember correctly), and with the Geforce 2 Go it makes a decent machine for newer dos games. The ESS / Crystal that it comes with also has dos drivers. Be wary that not all models allow for this power save feature. I know the 8100 does, but I don't know about the 8000.

The 8200 can be slowed down to 1200MHz regardless of what model P4 is in it - this is about as fast as a 750? Mhz pIII, making it good for late dos games. The on board crystal sound card also has DOS drivers.

i currently use my old nx6125. sometimes i get digi-sound with dos (running win98 dos fullscreen)
mostly I do not get sound on dosgames. there is no fm-sound either. the lpt port is only available
when using a docking station. the display looks good to me, the gfx (x300m but shared) is really
fast. all games run fine (e.g. quake3) the nly thing that would make it perfect is a better sound
card which means dos compatible with fm and perhaps a comport and a winport for hooking up
the mt32.

dr.zeissler wrote:

i currently use my old nx6125. sometimes i get digi-sound with dos (running win98 dos fullscreen) mostly I do not get sound on d […]
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i currently use my old nx6125. sometimes i get digi-sound with dos (running win98 dos fullscreen)
mostly I do not get sound on dosgames. there is no fm-sound either. the lpt port is only available
when using a docking station. the display looks good to me, the gfx (x300m but shared) is really
fast. all games run fine (e.g. quake3) the nly thing that would make it perfect is a better sound
card which means dos compatible with fm and perhaps a comport and a winport for hooking up
the mt32.

the nx6125 and nc6000 have nothing in common. nx6125 is part of the generation that dropped all dos support. Quake 3 is more of a win9x era game - for me, winXP games mean Doom 3, Quake 4 and alike. Those will not run well on the x300...

Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2

CPU: Intel Pentium M 2.1GHz
RAM: 2GB DDR2-533
HDD: 250GB (C: 40GB, D: 190+GB)
BIOS: Latest available
VIDEO: nVidia GeForce Go 7800GTX 256MB PCI-Express
OS: Windows XP Home SP3

This was such a beast of a laptop that it's still today the only real laptop I've ever owned. I still have it and yes, it does still work properly. It's been through hell, though. It went to Afghanistan and back with me in 2009-2010 before I built my first Core i7 gaming desktop. Bought it in 2005. Upgraded the small 80GB hard drive with a 250GB and had issues with it not booting after a certain point (due to partition size). Limiting C: to first 40GB solved issue. All games now installed on D:.

Replaced the Go 6800 Ultra when it fried, requiring a BIOS update to recognize the 7800 GTX. Replaced the MB after I spilled a glass of milk on the laptop. Replaced the LCD panel after I got the line issues. Installed Bluetooth module after the fact to link with cell phone. No longer used.

Played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with good framerates. Doom 3 also good. Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Final Fantasy XI at full-res, highest settings.

I've had two T42s and i wont recommend buying one now. They are notorious for developing problems with the Radeon GPUs detaching themselves from the motherboard. It happened to me and several other guys i went to uni with, but we got new mobos under the warranty though the problems came back after a while. I got a new one as a replacement eventually, but sold it soon after while still being in working condition. Its a shame really, because it was a solid PC otherwise with good performance and a good keyboard. The mobility 9600 really kicked a**.