Having owned and used some gaming and workstation class laptops, they come with baggage. Well they are the baggage. Large heavy and the power supplies are large as well. Luggable rather than portable and always power deficient compared to desktops.

So my question would be, are you likely to be using the laptop on the move? If so, would you be opposed to lighter and less powerful machines?

Uhh.. you do realize this is an old hardware section. None of the hardware you mention is "old". (Dell Precision 7720 mobile workstation release date ~2017, Xeon E3-1545M release date: Jan 24th, 2016).
Would like to give some opinions on hardware but have to respect the nature of this forums purpose. Not trying to be disrespectful, just stating the facts.

fxgogo wrote on 2023-12-16, 01:43:

So my question would be, are you likely to be using the laptop on the move? If so, would you be opposed to lighter and less powerful machines?

I'd say my main usage of a laptop is to carry it to another residence, set it up on a desk and plug it into the wall, so basically "desktop replacement" role so size and weight not so much of an issue. However carrying an actual desktop up and down the stairs is annoying, so a laptop makes sense. For winXP Ive gone for an IBM Thinkpad T60p with a motherboard from a T61, that seems to be about as good as you can go with a 15" 4:3 ratio display, a requirement I had since most if not all of the games that need winXP to work at their best are made for 4:3 ratio. This is also a rather bulky machine and not the lightest thing either, but it's portable enough for what I use it. For trully on-the-move use I like GPD Win handheld PCs. Ironically my T60p is actually rather usable in portable mode too, I am able to hold it with one hand by the extended battery as if it was a handle, and operate it with my other hand just fine 😀

Horun wrote on 2023-12-16, 04:48:

Uhh.. you do realize this is an old hardware section. None of the hardware you mention is "old".

That's why I also put "retro" in quotes as probably win7 PCs are not quite "retro" yet for most people. But they definitely will become eventually, people will be building win7 retro PCs one day, like they are building winXP and win98 retro PCs now. Wasnt that long ago winXP PCs werent considered retro either. Guess Im just trying to get what I need early while availabiliy is still not out the window, like it is now for top of the line win98 hardware, and quickly becoming for winXP top of the line hardware too. And honestly win7 should already be considered retro, its still usable right now, but a lot of important daily use software such as web browsers no longer receive updates so it wont be much longer now. And it is the last trully great microsoft OS from just before the software as a service era. We are already building desktop win7 "retro" PCs in my sub-community right now

Yes Win 7 is slowly becoming the new retro OS. I thought there was a another Main topic at Vogons about running old OS on newer hardware but only found this: Microsoft Will NOT Support Windows 7 or 8 Installations on New Hardware
and this New section suggestion: "Running old Windows operating systems on modern hardware"

Clevo / XMG / Sager 17" desktop replacement machines. They run a bit loud, but cooling is very good for the hardware they pack.

Example models:
X7200
LGA1366 socket, support i7 990x or Xeon x5690, triple-channel ddr3 so-dimm and GTX580m SLI with bios/driver-mod support GTX 680m

P570WM
LGA2011 socket, support i7 4960x or 12 core XeonV2, quad-channel ddr3 so-dimm and GTX980m SLI.

Interesting Clevo machines, never heard of those. That's some serious power they pack. However the Dell Dimension 7720 in the spec I described still looks better, a more modern cpu with avx2 even if with fewer cores, and a pascal generation gpu, would make it more capable for running the most demanding win7 games. Also seemingly quiet cooling and decent battery life.

On desktop theres a bit more freedom for what can be done with win7, last gpu drivers for win7 allow for nvidia rtx 3000 series or amd radeon rx 6000 series gpu. A friend is experimenting with a 6950XT for win7 right now with some pretty positive results. People have been able to get win7 to work on un-supported socket AM5 with 7800X3D with all drivers present and no yellow checkmarks in device manager, which sounds amazing. On laptop however, official support seems more important

God Of Gaming wrote on 2023-12-16, 07:12:

But they definitely will become eventually, people will be building win7 retro PCs one day, like they are building winXP and win98 retro PCs now. Wasnt that long ago winXP PCs werent considered retro either. Guess Im just trying to get what I need early while availabiliy is still not out the window, like it is now for top of the line win98 hardware, and quickly becoming for winXP top of the line hardware too. And honestly win7 should already be considered retro, its still usable right now, but a lot of important daily use software such as web browsers no longer receive updates so it wont be much longer now. And it is the last trully great microsoft OS from just before the software as a service era. We are already building desktop win7 "retro" PCs in my sub-community right now

As much as I agree that Windows 7 is the greatest version of Windows ever, I'm not sure you'll ever see a huge retro following for a simple reason: what software (games or otherwise) is there that runs on Win7 that won't run on a modern Win10/11 machine?

What drives Win98 retro machines in particular is nostalgia for DOS/early Windows/etc games that simply won't run on NT-based OSes. And what drives XP retro machines largely, again, has to do with the huge body of XP games that won't run, or won't run as well (e.g. the EAX issue) on newer versions of Windows, particularly those after that patch that broke the CD copy protection stuff. And with the move away from 32-bit to 64-bit, again, that introduced another layer of compatibility issues and at some point it becomes easier to just have an XP retro system rather than try to run Windows 10 32-bit on a modern system.

Also doesn't help that a lot of games moved towards Steam distribution in the Win7 era. Steam is not going to run on Win7 forever, but meanwhile, Steam makes it very easy for developers to do minor patches if necessary for Win10/11 compatibility. There are just far fewer DVDs of 2014-era games floating around than there are CDs of 2004-era games... so if those digital distribution platforms don't support the retro OS anymore... might make it a challenge...

God Of Gaming wrote on 2023-12-16, 17:22:

Interesting Clevo machines, never heard of those. That's some serious power they pack. However the Dell Dimension 7720 in the spec I described still looks better, a more modern cpu with avx2 even if with fewer cores, and a pascal generation gpu, would make it more capable for running the most demanding win7 games. Also seemingly quiet cooling and decent battery life.

On desktop theres a bit more freedom for what can be done with win7, last gpu drivers for win7 allow for nvidia rtx 3000 series or amd radeon rx 6000 series gpu. A friend is experimenting with a 6950XT for win7 right now with some pretty positive results. People have been able to get win7 to work on un-supported socket AM5 with 7800X3D with all drivers present and no yellow checkmarks in device manager, which sounds amazing. On laptop however, official support seems more important

There are faster and newer Clevo desktop cpu class laptops but I can't list them because I haven't been interested in them. Those models listed are the just period correct win7 era "halo" spec machines 😁

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-16, 18:07:

Also doesn't help that a lot of games moved towards Steam distribution in the Win7 era. Steam is not going to run on Win7 forever, but meanwhile, Steam makes it very easy for developers to do minor patches if necessary for Win10/11 compatibility. There are just far fewer DVDs of 2014-era games floating around than there are CDs of 2004-era games... so if those digital distribution platforms don't support the retro OS anymore... might make it a challenge...

Technically you can also run all DOS and most if not all win98 era games on a modern PC with various emulators and compatibility layers, and most winXP games work just about fine with a few tweaks from pcgamingwiki applied. It's true that theres a few particularly problematic games, but what's to say that in a few more years new advances in hardware and/or drivers will not introduce new issues for win7-era games? In fact I think theres a few such cases already. And I know a lot of people who collect and build retro PCs just because they enjoy tinkering with old machines and dont actually care much about gaming. And the issue with digital distribution and copy protections and whatnot can all very easily be circled around by sailing some high seas 😉 All in all, its probably a matter of viewpoint, and from my viewpoint, and my friends circle, win7 builds have just as much reason to exist in perpetuity in our hardware collections as win9x and winXP builds do. And I am sure we are not alone and theres many other people who think that way. Especially since I hate win10/11 so damn much my next move after win7 will be linux

I really like Win7 too, for Win10 am running the LTSC 😀 on one box, the other has 10 Home ugh 🤣.

I run win10 IoT LTSC 21H2 on an old GPD Win 2 handheld, and even tho thats supposed to be the least-annoying version of win10, it still constantly finds new ways to annoy me... I'm considering buying the new GPD Win Mini and if I do I'm plopping linux on that for sure, turning it into a GPD Lin Mini 😁 The specs on that thing have improved so much over my old Win 2, that, given a docking station and perhaps an eGPU, could easily see myself using one as my new main PC and not bothering doing another desktop build. At that point I'd only have my old win9x, winXP and win7 retro desktops and laptops for running old games and software, and go with a docked handheld running linux as my main machine for newer games and software going forwards, and just keep upgrading that as newer models get released, seems like a reasonable plan to me

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-16, 18:07:

As much as I agree that Windows 7 is the greatest version of Windows ever, I'm not sure you'll ever see a huge retro following f […]
Show full quote

God Of Gaming wrote on 2023-12-16, 07:12:

But they definitely will become eventually, people will be building win7 retro PCs one day, like they are building winXP and win98 retro PCs now. Wasnt that long ago winXP PCs werent considered retro either. Guess Im just trying to get what I need early while availabiliy is still not out the window, like it is now for top of the line win98 hardware, and quickly becoming for winXP top of the line hardware too. And honestly win7 should already be considered retro, its still usable right now, but a lot of important daily use software such as web browsers no longer receive updates so it wont be much longer now. And it is the last trully great microsoft OS from just before the software as a service era. We are already building desktop win7 "retro" PCs in my sub-community right now

As much as I agree that Windows 7 is the greatest version of Windows ever, I'm not sure you'll ever see a huge retro following for a simple reason: what software (games or otherwise) is there that runs on Win7 that won't run on a modern Win10/11 machine?

What drives Win98 retro machines in particular is nostalgia for DOS/early Windows/etc games that simply won't run on NT-based OSes. And what drives XP retro machines largely, again, has to do with the huge body of XP games that won't run, or won't run as well (e.g. the EAX issue) on newer versions of Windows, particularly those after that patch that broke the CD copy protection stuff. And with the move away from 32-bit to 64-bit, again, that introduced another layer of compatibility issues and at some point it becomes easier to just have an XP retro system rather than try to run Windows 10 32-bit on a modern system.

Also doesn't help that a lot of games moved towards Steam distribution in the Win7 era. Steam is not going to run on Win7 forever, but meanwhile, Steam makes it very easy for developers to do minor patches if necessary for Win10/11 compatibility. There are just far fewer DVDs of 2014-era games floating around than there are CDs of 2004-era games... so if those digital distribution platforms don't support the retro OS anymore... might make it a challenge...

I have a few Windows 7 games that won't run well on newer versions of Windows. These are typically military sims that are fairly niche genres. For example, there's a flight sim called Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory that only works up to Windows 7. While I did try a fan made Windows 10 patch, it still didn't run well for me. The T-34 vs Tiger tank sim is another. Some of the Thirdwire flight sims are only supported up to Windows 7 as well. I also remember having trouble with Mirror's Edge when I upgraded from 7 to 10, but, being a popular game, that one might have been fixed. While the vast majority of Windows 7 games would work on newer versions, I still think there are a few that don't. If you're into niche simulation games like me, it can be really frustrating. I don't want to build another system just to play a handful of games, but I also haven't found many other options. I've also been considering just getting a Windows 7 gaming laptop to play them. Yes, they aren't perfect, but I can at least put them in the closet when I'm not using them to save space.

If it were me, I'd make sure my "retro" Windows 7 machine (or laptop) supports PhysX - and that means an Nvidia GPU. Unless you can live without all candy enabled (or unavailable), the Batman Arkham games, for example, run horribly slow; often sub-30fps. Sacred 2 is another one. Any beefy Dell Precision mobile workstation which meets your needs will be a good one. I've had a number of them - they are built well and perform great.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:22:

I have a few Windows 7 games that won't run well on newer versions of Windows. These are typically military sims that are fairly niche genres. For example, there's a flight sim called Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory that only works up to Windows 7. While I did try a fan made Windows 10 patch, it still didn't run well for me. The T-34 vs Tiger tank sim is another. Some of the Thirdwire flight sims are only supported up to Windows 7 as well. I also remember having trouble with Mirror's Edge when I upgraded from 7 to 10, but, being a popular game, that one might have been fixed. While the vast majority of Windows 7 games would work on newer versions, I still think there are a few that don't. If you're into niche simulation games like me, it can be really frustrating. I don't want to build another system just to play a handful of games, but I also haven't found many other options. I've also been considering just getting a Windows 7 gaming laptop to play them. Yes, they aren't perfect, but I can at least put them in the closet when I'm not using them to save space.

Do these run on XP? Or Vista/7 only?

The Alienware m15x, a laptop from 2009 if I remember correctly. The most powerful 15-inch thing there was.

Their characteristics are:

full-hd screen
cpu i7 920xm
GTX260M GPU with MXM 3.0B Slot (upgradable to GTX970M)
ram 16gb ddr3
sata 2 ssd disk
DVD reader
usb 2.0
pciexpresscard

and has a magnesium chassis.
Very original gamer laptop with a backlit keyboard in 4 RGB zones.

Greetings

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-17, 02:12:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:22:

I have a few Windows 7 games that won't run well on newer versions of Windows. These are typically military sims that are fairly niche genres. For example, there's a flight sim called Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory that only works up to Windows 7. While I did try a fan made Windows 10 patch, it still didn't run well for me. The T-34 vs Tiger tank sim is another. Some of the Thirdwire flight sims are only supported up to Windows 7 as well. I also remember having trouble with Mirror's Edge when I upgraded from 7 to 10, but, being a popular game, that one might have been fixed. While the vast majority of Windows 7 games would work on newer versions, I still think there are a few that don't. If you're into niche simulation games like me, it can be really frustrating. I don't want to build another system just to play a handful of games, but I also haven't found many other options. I've also been considering just getting a Windows 7 gaming laptop to play them. Yes, they aren't perfect, but I can at least put them in the closet when I'm not using them to save space.

Do these run on XP? Or Vista/7 only?

Some of the Third Wire Strike Fighters games are Vista/Win 7 only.

Yes, there are some of the early Battlefield series that also do not play nice with Win10 (battlefield 2 as example, sure it goes black screen when launched but if you wait a few minutes it might load and play 🤣) .
Fine under XP and Win7... Also Zoo Tycoon 2 also has issues, it is Win98SE/XP required chokes on 10 (also hates the Win7 aero themed desktop, resets it but is playable). Those two have personal experience with.
added: Win10 is not as XP game friendly as others may lead you to believe, am sure Win11 is worse (when has MS ever created a more backward compatible new OS in the last 10 years ??)

Meatball wrote on 2023-12-17, 01:54:

If it were me, I'd make sure my "retro" Windows 7 machine (or laptop) supports PhysX - and that means an Nvidia GPU.

Yes it is a major consideration, Physx wasnt much of a thing during winXP era till like a few late 2006 games that rather need an ageia physx ppu than a nvidia gpu, also winXP-era nvidia gpus suffer from bumpgate, so ATi is the way to go for winXP. But I can think of a decent number of win7-era games that use physx or hairworks or whatever, so nvidia is a must for win7. For desktop I'm particularly interested in the Quadro RTX A4000, which is basically an underclocked undervolted 3070ti with double the vram. Rated at a mere 140w TDP, lower than even the 3060. Default single-slot cooler seems to be no good, making it run hot and loud, but theres some aftermarket dual and triple slot coolers, seemingly aimed at crypto mining operations, but apparently make it run cool and quiet, so I'd try that. Only issue is, officially it only has drivers for windows server 2012 R2 (based on win 8.1). So whether I can make it work on win7 by editting the .inf files of the 3070ti win7 drivers, remains to be tested once I get one. They currently go for about 500 eur, so Im waiting for prices to drop, perhaps when corporations start to sell off their old workstations. If it works fine on win7, it will be the ideal card for the task. Cool, quiet and performant, and probably reliable. Which cannot be said about something high end such as a 3090ti which would be the fastest win7 gpu on paper.

However on laptop, looks like pascal gen is as good as you can go, with the Dell Precision 7720 being able to be configured with a Quadro P3000, P4000 or P5000, while other brands seemingly ending their win7 support with maxwell gen. Technically RTX 3080 mobile has win7 drivers available, but if no laptop that comes with that gpu has win7 support, thats kinda pointless. Perhaps it could be possible though, if the laptop has at least 8 cpu cores, might be able to run linux as main os, and set up a VM with win7 using 6 of the 8 cores, and having a hardware passtrough for the rtx3080, while Linux runs on the igpu. That might work. Though it might require an external monitor to be plugged into the 3080 while the igpu displays on the laptop screen. Which makes the whole thing a bit meaningless. P.S. reading up on this idea, it might actually be possible to make it work with the laptop display, could certainly be worth investigating into

I really think your two choices are good ones along with the Alienware suggestion. Dell machines are ubiquitous and so will be easier to replace parts and get spare machines. Dell also maintains their drivers rather well.

I have actually done a similar thing to you with a machine a mate gave me. It is a highly specced 2012 era machine which has support for XP and Win 7. It is my offline gaming machine for those era games if they don’t work on my modern Win 11 beast. It is also where I run old design software that do not like modern OS versions.