COMPAQ Armada DOS retrogaming laptops with Wavetable audio (7800 & 7400).

These vintage Compaq Armada laptop twins boast top-notch audio (ESS Audiodrive, General Midi hardware wavetable) and graphics (S3 Virge), making them Dream Machines for MS-DOS retrogaming. BUT…, is their Pentium 2 processor a secret weapon or a drawback? Let's find out!
🎮👾 #Compaqarmada #retrogaming #MSDOS #VintageTech
00:00 Intro
01:00 Specs, ports, display
02:21 HDD caddy, Compact flash compatibility
03:00 Powering UP and BIOS settings
04:10 Benchmarks
04:35 Sound setup, ESSVOL
04:50 DOS games, Wing Commander, Tyrian, Wolf3d,...
06:17 Hardware Wavetable, Doom, Dune 2, Star Wars X-Wing, Kyrandia...
11:32 Windows 98 and file transfers
11:55 Conclusions, score
11:35 Next review, Libretto alternative

[@szyszka8303]

Have you consider testing WYSE Cx0 C10LE(or any c3 via cpu) terminal as a DOS machine - with sbemu & setmul ? I heard it gives good results. Small, cheap, easy to get ...

[@retrobecanes]

Thanks for the tip. I've been following the SBEMU project for a while and indeed, it is quite mature and viable. I do have a VIA Eden mobo, but so far I'm not very satisfied with the SETMUL performance scaling. But to be honest, I did not test it extensively....it's on my list though.

[@szyszka8303]

@@retrobecanes kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2mVkH6mjbqKh7c

[@retrobecanes]

@szyszka8303 Thanks! Excellent reference video.

[@rogert151]

i`ve recently discovered cpuspd, it seems to work well with the chipset throttling option on my p2 350 desktop, i dont know if it works on a laptop

[@retrobecanes]

Thanks for the tip! I’ll give it a try.

[@LenweSaralonde]

WTF the BIOS is a Windows 3.1 ?

[@retrobecanes]

I guess they were ahead of their time…precursor of EFI

[@Russell970]

install windows 7 on them and try to enable aero effects lol

[@retrobecanes]

I don’t even dare to think about it LOL

[@Russell970]

Give it a try :P an SSD would help just make sure to install a lite version of Win7 32bit @@retrobecanes

[@Unirule]

The worst I've accomplished in this regard was daily driving Windows 7 on a P3 deskpro for a short period of time.

[@Russell970]

@@Unirule Oh my you're a legend lol

[@retrobecanes]

You guys managed to get me to pull out my Win 7 installation DVD.

[@hartfarrish4808]

*PromoSM*