Hey guys,
I've been searching extensively to try and find examples of laptops circa 1998-2001 with graphics capable of basic OpenGL and Direct3D but can't really find anything, google is pretty much useless. Does anyone here have a link or some knowledge around this? Thanks
Try the following list from Notebookcheck:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-L … ards.130.0.html
https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys
Where to start? Let's get Intel out of the way, in 2001 they had the i830MG integrating the i754 tech.
S3 Savage MX/IX laptops made it by the end of 1999.
Earlier option can be Trident Blade 3D laptops. Before that I cannot recall 3d chipsets with openGL drivers.
Update: perhaps Rage LT Pro would be the first. There's OpenGL even for Apple Powerbook.
On laptops around the turn of the century I see a lot of ATI stuff, Rage Mobility or something. Some better than others.
I think most laptops around the mid to late 90's running Windows 95 or 98 would have something that at least claims to have 3D acceleration. It might work like crap but it would work... and your video RAM options would probably be much less than comparable desktops.
For example around 1999 a good desktop card would have had 16 or 32 MB of RAM. I think a laptop from the same era would typically have 4 or 8 MB.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
World's foremost 486 enjoyer.
Savage IX / MX - 1999 - OpenGL 1.1, SuperSavage ICX / MX - 2001
Nvidia GeForce 2 Go - 2001
Trident CyberBlade XP - 2000
Ati Rage Mobility - 1999 - OpenGL 1.1, Mobility Radeon - 2001
Btw: this kind of questions is why i added years to my history tree of cards.....easily visible all models from each year
http://vgamuseum.info/images/doc/history.png
PS: for reviews use google search, but switch for books.
Not only mine graphics cards collection at http://www.vgamuseum.info
Per Wikipedia, the first mobile GPU from ATI was the Rage LT (based on the Rage II), not the Rage LT Pro (based on the Rage Pro) which came out a year later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_g … rocessing_units
Many “Pentium” laptops had 2.25mb of vram.
Had about a dozen of various speeds pass through my fingers configured that way, and I’m assuming all were 2D centric
Silicon Motion had the following mobile chips;
SM820 Lynx3D (1998)
SM721 Lynx3DM (2000)
SM722 Lynx3DM+ (2001)
SM731 Cougar3DR (2003)
NeoMagic had the MagicMedia256 chips (various incarnations) but I don't know if those had 3D.
S3 Graphics had the ViRGE/MX, the Savage/MX, Savage/IX and the SuperSavage.
SiS had chipsets with integrated graphics.
rmay635703 wrote on 2025-09-09, 23:01:Many “Pentium” laptops had 2.25mb of vram.
Had about a dozen of various speeds pass through my fingers configured that way, and I’m assuming all were 2D centric
Obviously lots of laptops in the mid-to-late-90s shipped without any kind of 3D acceleration hardware, all you got was either 2D acceleration or even an unaccelerated SVGA. It was the same with desktops, with the difference desktops could usually be upgraded.
But my point is, 3d acceleration hardware existed in laptops shortly after the 3dfx Voodoo was released, in the form of the Rage LT. I wish I had a list of laptops from 1996 or 1997 that had it, but I don't.
NitroX infinity wrote on 2025-09-10, 22:23:Silicon Motion had the following mobile chips; […]
Silicon Motion had the following mobile chips;
SM820 Lynx3D (1998)
SM721 Lynx3DM (2000)
SM722 Lynx3DM+ (2001)
SM731 Cougar3DR (2003)NeoMagic had the MagicMedia256 chips (various incarnations) but I don't know if those had 3D.
S3 Graphics had the ViRGE/MX, the Savage/MX, Savage/IX and the SuperSavage.
SiS had chipsets with integrated graphics.
Never heard of lynx 3d,
Neomagic was the fastest 2d acceleration but absolutely zero 3d support , saw tons of laptops with them.
S3 in a laptop are pretty rare nowadays
SiS with integrated 3d actually made sense in a laptop but they were always those strange white box laptops that had them and they usually burned up in a couple years.
https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments … aptops_with_3d/
Realistically Rage Mobility and the integrated GeForce stuff is likely more realically capable of actually being compatible with anything and finding a surviving example.
… Acer Travelmate 529atxv
Despite not really being Windows 9x Laptops with these it’s possible to find 9x drivers anyway
If you find one of the dozen or so Windows Me/2k 3d laptops like the Toshiba te200, it probably won’t post and if it works the 3d will be a generation slower than you expect.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7t2JsItC-Wc&pp= … IIzk4OThvbmU%3D
kurkosdr wrote on 2025-09-10, 22:47:But my point is, 3d acceleration hardware existed in laptops shortly after the 3dfx Voodoo was released, in the form of the Rage LT. I wish I had a list of laptops from 1996 or 1997 that had it, but I don't.
Shortly? Nope. The only thing close to a laptop with 3d acceleration were those large semi-luggable unbranded things that shoehorned desktop class cpu, ram and video into a smaller package.
Some docking stations would allow an actual 3dfx gpu to be installed while docked by not the same
The first useful one for 3D was ATI Rage Mobility, based on Rage Pro. That was probably 1998?
The first really interesting one to me was Mobility Radeon 9600.
I mostly feel it's not worth the brain energy to rediscover all the questionable notebook graphics of the 90s. 🤣 Maybe there's an old Usenet FAQ.
One aspect that sucked was until the ATI Rage nobody did bilinear LCD scaling. So you got a terribly aliased pixel stretch at non native resolution. Or you could just live with no screen fit and have a tiny image. Especially suckful in DOS.
