GL. If you find a graphics driver that works let me know. I been down this road with a T43. Found drivers for everything except the x300. There is no Mobile X300 driver for windows 98se. The very last Radeon driver mentions support for the x300, and even with INF mods I was never able to get it working. IBMs implementation is a lot different than x300 graphics card.

On a side note the t42, will run 98 perfectly.

Best advice is to install XP on it will all the drivers. Then copy down all the hardware IDs and look for refrence drivers for that hardware from sites like driver guide, or from the source like broadcom for the NIC. You will need to mod the INFs for the video card and insert the hardware ID for the x300. GL

Yeah, there is no GPU driver for Windows 98. I have a Thinkpad R52 with the same X300 chip and the earliest OS that will fully work on it is Windows XP (maybe 2000).

BTW: Windows 98 can be run with more than 512MB RAM if you install Patchmem:
https://archive.org/details/PATCHMEM

This is a few years late, but I just extracted the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, pointed the device manager to the folder, and selected Radeon X300 as the display device/driver to use. Selecting Radeon 9600 also works . It runs fine for me on the T43. I was playing Quake 2 and 3 on it without issue. The X300 is only showing up at 300Mhz though - I don't know if this is normal for the Thinkpads.

The Radeon Mobility X300 is pretty much a renamed 9600/Pro (same R300 architecture). The bus width of the x300 is only 64-bit , so it's hurting for bandwidth compared to the T42 series.

T42 Radeon 9600 (R300)
317MHz core
64MB 418MHz 128-bit vram

T42p FireGL T2 (R300)
317MHz core
128MB 404MHz 128-bit vram

T43 Radeon X300 (R300)
297Mhz core
64MB 460Mhz 64-bit vram

I just wanted to provide this option in the thread for any future reader.

My main interest in using the T43 for Windows9x-only games is due to the T42 machines being known for gpu failures.

Masejoer wrote on 2023-03-13, 00:08:

This is a few years late, but I just extracted the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, pointed the device manager to the folder, and selected […]
Show full quote

This is a few years late, but I just extracted the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, pointed the device manager to the folder, and selected Radeon X300 as the display device/driver to use. Selecting Radeon 9600 also works . It runs fine for me on the T43. I was playing Quake 2 and 3 on it without issue. The X300 is only showing up at 300Mhz though - I don't know if this is normal for the Thinkpads.

The Radeon Mobility X300 is pretty much a renamed 9600/Pro (same R300 architecture). The bus width of the x300 is only 64-bit , so it's hurting for bandwidth compared to the T42 series.

T42 Radeon 9600 (R300)
317MHz core
64MB 418MHz 128-bit vram

T42p FireGL T2 (R300)
317MHz core
128MB 404MHz 128-bit vram

T43 Radeon X300 (R300)
297Mhz core
64MB 460Mhz 64-bit vram

I just wanted to provide this option in the thread for any future reader.

My main interest in using the T43 for Windows9x-only games is due to the T42 machines being known for gpu failures.

Hi I just installed w98. ? It’s second edition, I downloaded cataclyst 6.2 . It’s says nothing in the folder suits the display adapter. It’s t43. Could you help me please?

You need to install it manually, when Windows wants to search for the driver from a location you choose to select driver and then click have disk and point to Catalyst driver folder.

Thinkpad T43 is oddball, it has newer chipset and that IDE HDD is connected through IDE-SATA bridge. I have 15" T42p which is with older stuff.

Masejoer wrote on 2023-03-13, 00:08:

This is a few years late, but I just extracted the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, pointed the device manager to the folder, and selected […]
Show full quote

This is a few years late, but I just extracted the Catalyst 6.2 drivers, pointed the device manager to the folder, and selected Radeon X300 as the display device/driver to use. Selecting Radeon 9600 also works . It runs fine for me on the T43. I was playing Quake 2 and 3 on it without issue. The X300 is only showing up at 300Mhz though - I don't know if this is normal for the Thinkpads.

The Radeon Mobility X300 is pretty much a renamed 9600/Pro (same R300 architecture). The bus width of the x300 is only 64-bit , so it's hurting for bandwidth compared to the T42 series.

T42 Radeon 9600 (R300)
317MHz core
64MB 418MHz 128-bit vram

T42p FireGL T2 (R300)
317MHz core
128MB 404MHz 128-bit vram

T43 Radeon X300 (R300)
297Mhz core
64MB 460Mhz 64-bit vram

I just wanted to provide this option in the thread for any future reader.

My main interest in using the T43 for Windows9x-only games is due to the T42 machines being known for gpu failures.

Hey Mase how is the t43 experience on windows 98? I'm very curious to know as there are many threads on the internet of people saying that they couldn't even get x300 drivers installed but you have! Warlord made a comment in 2020 saying that they couldnt even get the drivers installed even with a modified inf using the latest version of catalyst supported on 98 (i'm assuming he used 6.2). Was the installation procedure really as straight forward as you've mentioned.

I know this reply is quite delayed but I've been scouring the internet for a long time trying to find some success stories with the t43 on windows 98 as my t41 GPU died and i'm in need of an easily obtainable retro thinkpad that won't sh*t the bed like my aforementioned t41 and the whole t4x line from the t42 and before.

Someone by the name of diderius6 on this site also managed to get 98 working on a t43 - https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/how-to-inst … nkpad-t43/34539

This was his image of proof, but he has provided no links or tutorials as to how he accomplished anything.

I just tested this method on my Thinkpad R52 and it indeed works!

Had to modify the ATI Catalyst driver a little (added device and subsystem IDs to the .inf file and also modified the CPanel.dat so the control panel software can be installed. The modified driver is available here (as well as some other drivers from older Thinkpad models that still work with the R52).

Getting the sound to work on the machine was also pretty easy. Just download the official driver for Windows XP/2000. That also contains a Windows 98 driver, even if that's not explicitely mentioned.

If you also want Ethernet support, just install the Broadcom NetXtreme driver from here. It will complain about a missing .cat file but you can skip those warnings and it will work fine afterwards.

Bare in mind that I only tested this on an R52. Someone else with a T42/T43 would have to test this.

schmatzler wrote on 2023-08-11, 21:02:

I just tested this method on my Thinkpad R52 and it indeed works! […]
Show full quote

I just tested this method on my Thinkpad R52 and it indeed works!

Had to modify the ATI Catalyst driver a little (added device and subsystem IDs to the .inf file and also modified the CPanel.dat so the control panel software can be installed. The modified driver is available here (as well as some other drivers from older Thinkpad models that still work with the R52).

Getting the sound to work on the machine was also pretty easy. Just download the official driver for Windows XP/2000. That also contains a Windows 98 driver, even if that's not explicitely mentioned.

If you also want Ethernet support, just install the Broadcom NetXtreme driver from here. It will complain about a missing .cat file but you can skip those warnings and it will work fine afterwards.

Bare in mind that I only tested this on an R52. Someone else with a T42/T43 would have to test this.

Good stuff, I've downloaded your driver pack and will test it on a t43 when i get one - i checked thinkwiki and its identical spec wise to the r52 so it should work the same. This is a very good discovery for the thinkpad community for real. Theres a program called IBM_ECW which I used on the t41 to undervolt and calm the heat down when I had it. It works on windows 98 but I'm not sure if sonoma pentium M's undervolt like banias - would you be able to test this! Here is a link to it

https://web.archive.org/web/20190301073635/ht … _EC/IBM_ECW.ZIP

Many thanks once again for your testing

Hi, which chipset drivers have you installed (link please, if possible) ? As far as I know, intel 915 has no drivers for windows 98. In the links there are only chipset drivers for windows XP and windows 2000. So far I have installed almost everything and chipset is the one thing I am missing. Thanks in advance.