MAZter wrote on 2026-01-29, 17:09:

Flare400 wrote on 2026-01-29, 17:06:

Hello!
Is it possible to use Thinkpad A22p for DOS gaming?

Try using SBEMU.

I'm quite sure it's a problem with video drivers. If I uninstall all the ATI video drivers and just leave the generic Windows display driver then DOS games look just fine...

There is never a problem with sound; even despite the flickering, I can still hear the sounds and menu music... And the problem even happens with something like Alley Cat, which only has PC speaker beeps...

Yes, this is a problem specific to the Thinkpad A22p BIOS. To quote myself:

schmatzler wrote on 2026-02-15, 10:58:

The latest BIOS has a bug which makes the screen go blank when you start a DOS game from within Windows 98. You can either boot into DOS mode and run them directly from there or downgrade to BIOS 1.09 (spsuiv67.exe).

Guys I’ve bought compaq 1800 expecting it to be with ATI m3, but looks like it’s m1( is it possible? Anyone with driver set for win 98? Can you upload please, thanks.

Google says these came with the m1.

vorob wrote on 2026-02-17, 16:49:

Guys I’ve bought compaq 1800 expecting it to be with ATI m3, but looks like it’s m1( is it possible? Anyone with driver set for win 98? Can you upload please, thanks.

Presario 1800? There were about a million revisions of these. Rage LT Pro or Mobility-P (basically the same thing) or NeoMagic on the original ones from 1998. The ATI versions use the ESS Solo-1E so they should do well in DOS.

Sad sad… I hate m1 😀

Is the M1 compatible with the Mach64 drivers for Windows 3.1? I know that the Rage series is, which is pretty cool.

All ATI cards from Rage LT upwards are great for DOS as they do the interpolated full screen scaling of all video modes. With an ESS Solo that should make a fantastic mobile DOS gaming system.

I've moved entirely over to a ThinkPad T43 for mobile DOS gaming due to VSBHDA... it's a game changer.

Can anyone share best win 98 driver for ati m1?

vorob wrote on 2026-02-17, 16:49:

Guys I’ve bought compaq 1800 expecting it to be with ATI m3, but looks like it’s m1( is it possible? Anyone with driver set for win 98? Can you upload please, thanks.

Try these W98V6907.EXE : https://www.dell.com/support/home/cs-cz/drive … driverid=r21335

megatron-uk wrote on 2026-02-18, 07:51:

All ATI cards from Rage LT upwards are great for DOS as they do the interpolated full screen scaling of all video modes. With an ESS Solo that should make a fantastic mobile DOS gaming system

Unfortunately they still have scrolling glitches in Keen, at least from what I've seen. For most games, they're probably better. So far the only video chips I've found that can do a scaling that doesn't break Keen is the C&T 65555 and the S3 ViRGE/MX. This is still dependent on the laptop's BIOS though, so the good performance isn't guaranteed on every laptop that uses these chips. The type of scaling they do doesn't fill the whole screen (but most of it).

3lectr1c wrote on 2026-02-18, 16:58:

Unfortunately they still have scrolling glitches in Keen

There's been a lot of work and research done on this problem recently, and it's actually fairly well solved by this point. There are patches available for all Keen games that fix the scrolling problems on ATI cards: Re: Keen 4-5-6 choppy scrolling on EGA card

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-02-18, 18:27:

3lectr1c wrote on 2026-02-18, 16:58:

Unfortunately they still have scrolling glitches in Keen

There's been a lot of work and research done on this problem recently, and it's actually fairly well solved by this point. There are patches available for all Keen games that fix the scrolling problems on ATI cards: Re: Keen 4-5-6 choppy scrolling on EGA card

Excellent!
Do you know if this fixes the issue on older 2D cards, or just on ATI?

3lectr1c wrote on 2026-02-19, 16:09:

Excellent!
Do you know if this fixes the issue on older 2D cards, or just on ATI?

Because the issue has to do with when the cards latch the pel pan register, it should make a difference at least. It's not guaranteed to solve it but it's worth a try. The "Fix Jerky Motion" option can also fix the issue on some older 2D cards, if your system is not too fast.

This topic: Why does Commander Keen 4-6 hardware scrolling glitch on ATI (Mach) PCI video cards? has a wealth of information on the subject.

Ive got a beautiful Toshiba Libretto 70CT which im hoping to use if i can get the blooming thing working!
I have my own thread on it at My Toshiba Libretto Journey

I’m desperate about the ATI M1 graphics card. I’d like to love it, but my experience has been sharply negative.

First, I have my own “thing” about it: I understand this card is a good fit for DOS games because it does proper scaling. But it’s also a 3D accelerator, so I want to play 3D games on Windows. And everything I run looks awful. And it’s not about performance—poor performance on a weak card is fine. The problem is glitches.

Thief: some polygons are missing on the bow. That’s unacceptable. If one piece is missing here, who knows what else might be missing elsewhere in the game?
Unreal: horrible, pitch-black shadows crushed to 0, plus weird texture glitches. Also a very strange situation.
Even Fallout 2: I launched it and when scenes change, I get these lines along the edges of objects.

Not sure about the others, but Unreal will probably work fine if you disable detail textures in the ini; it's either that or multi-texturing. This feature is enabled by default and creates problems early accelerators that don't support it.

For me the perfect retro laptop is the Compaq armada, Pentium 3 ~400 mhz, not that old, yeah, but gold!, It's cheap and easy find

It's frustrating to me when the speaker grills are on the palm rest area, since it tends to accumulate skin oils and dust. The only way to properly clean it then is to disassemble the entire laptop. I think that only Compaq did this in the early 90s.