There are also a very few PCMCIA video cards, but again that would be bypassing the internal LCD. It would be interesting to see if a non-output card like the PowerVR would work!

I haven't seen it done with retro hardware.

On the other hand, some people have the "DIY ViDock"/eGPU approach for modern PCI-Express graphics cards on laptops with ExpressCard slots. People have even managed to get such setups to work with hacked NVIDIA Optimus drivers so they can use the internal display, but it does come at a slight performance penalty compared to just using an external monitor, on top of the usual performance penalties stemming from ExpressCard only supplying PCIe x1 bandwidth.

I'm sure it's possible with older cards like the PowerVR line, but don't be surprised if you run into issues like having to shutdown before connecting or disconnecting the card.

(Also, I'd have to admit that I'm more interested in using PCI or PCI-Express SOUND cards on a laptop, since only those have proper hardware sound acceleration for older games, and the software OpenAL device that Creative uses with their USB devices has its quirks. Meanwhile, you can find plenty of laptops with decent GPUs built-in...)

It certainly would be interesting to see a PCX2 rigged up with a notebook....

NamelessPlayer wrote:

(Also, I'd have to admit that I'm more interested in using PCI or PCI-Express SOUND cards on a laptop

I used a Audigy 2 ZS Notebook for years. These have hardware EAX4 and even run the normal Audigy drivers. It's unfortunate that Creative didn't make a quality X-Fi ExpressCard to replace it.

swaaye wrote:

It certainly would be interesting to see a PCX2 rigged up with a notebook....

I've actually done it. Unfortunately Trident hates it and refuses to set proper resolutions for it except for OpenGL games. The speed of the image transfer is slow, with visible pageflipping (GLQuake is 8fps in 640x480) so it is indeed bottlenecked heavily by the dock bus. 320x240/400x300 stretched image gaming on the PCX2 would be far more interesting if the Trident 9385 drivers didn't suck so much. DOS games don't work either, I couldn't get Tomb Raider PCX2 going due to it unable to set a resolution, even after Univbe loaded.

Another problem is that it only works in Windows 95. Windows 98SE throws up memory address conflicts with the PCX2 driver and the dock PCI-to-PCI bridge driver.

swaaye wrote:

It certainly would be interesting to see a PCX2 rigged up with a notebook....

NamelessPlayer wrote:

(Also, I'd have to admit that I'm more interested in using PCI or PCI-Express SOUND cards on a laptop

I used a Audigy 2 ZS Notebook for years. These have hardware EAX4 and even run the normal Audigy drivers. It's unfortunate that Creative didn't make a quality X-Fi ExpressCard to replace it.

I want to get my hands on one of those, but then there's the whole matter of most modern notebooks doing away with PCMCIA/CardBus in favor of ExpressCard (and sometimes still omitting even that). Wouldn't do my HP 2730p any favors because of that...

Unfortunately, none of the ExpressCard "X-Fi" devices have the actual EMU20k1/20k2. It's quite disappointing when the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook did actually cram an EMU10k2 inside like the desktop cards (hence kX Project drivers supporting it). And at this rate with these Sound Core3D devices that Creative's pumping out now, they never will...

What I would do for a perfect hardware sound emulator that provides perfect A3D 2/3 and EAX 3/4/5 support along with binaural HRTF mixing for headphones and DirectSound3D-to-OpenAL wrapping that can be used with any audio output device...unfortunately, it just doesn't exist right now, and Creative's lawyers would probably squash the efforts of anyone who tries.

I haven't seen factory, (eerrr maybe i have) seen dock with PCI. I have seen ViDocks and DIY ViDocks before.

Are there any decent sound cards for notebooks from sound quality stand point? I mean that in the modern since not old/dos game compatibility.