Should you get a vintage laptop for retro gaming?? - Compaq Presario 1692 - Super Socket 7 Laptop

This is featuring an AMD K6/2 Processor and ATI Rage Mobility M1 2D/3D Graphics.
I’ll be checking out the market context of laptops and PC’s in 1999 as well as exploring the features of the Presario 1692 in Windows 98SE and MS-DOS.
We will then go over the pros and cons around retro laptops from this era and while you might want to think twice before diving in.
It’s a bit of a lengthy look and discussion, but hopefully you find it interesting!
As always I’d love to hear your feedback and nostalgic memories down below
Errata:
17:01 - I had some text showing the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 for the Presario 1500 series laptop. It's actually the 7500. I think I had the 9000 on the brain from the Latitude D600 shown earlier :-)
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro & Specs
02:09 - PC/Laptop Market in 1999
06:36 - Windows 98 Startup
07:12 - Quake 2
07:49 - Quake 3
08:11 - Incoming
08:35 - Moto Racer
09:08 - GLQuake
09:28 - Monster Truck Madness
09:50 - Tomb Raider 2
10:46 - Forsaken
11:19 - Turok
12:05 - DOS Mode
12:23 - Doom
12:41 - Epic Pinball
13:08 - Duke Nukem 3D
13:47 - Grand Prix 2
14:25 - Space Bats
14:47 - Dosbench
15:33 - Overview of 1692
16:03 - Is a vintage laptop good for retro?
17:49 - Outro
Credits:
assets.hardwarezone.com/2009/... - Jaz Piper Pics
ru.pc-history.com/toshiba-sat... - Toshiba 2520CDT pictures
Https://mobygames.com - Thumbs for game covers

[@foobar-9k]

For Quake II, there was an AMD 3DNow! optimized version that helped quite a bit (IIRC) on those K6-2 CPUs.

[@IAmTheStiv]

i love including the green guide add to get some context of the time. Great video.

[@siliconinsect]

Active matrix LCD and thumping JBL speakers! In school I found a Presario 1210 with dim backlight and, once replaced, the passive LCD was terrible. Thing was still a champion for abuse. By the time it was retired for the second time it had 40GB HDD, CD burner, and most of the letters had worn off the keyboard. $5 mix CDs funded a Thinkpad 600x pretty quickly ;-)

[@mirific87]

main issues that I find with retro laptops is poor screen quality. SBEMU sorted a lot of the sound issues if you have a supported chipset, but the screen bleeding or poor refresh/ghosting is horrid to deal with. Ofc you can use external display.

[@infinity2z3r07]

Make sure to try the final driver (Phil has it on his site). It's from 2002 for Windows ME but installs fine on 98se. Definitely much better than the included Rage Pro driver on Windows.

[@gfunkster]

I have one and it has many positives for retro, definitely. I had one issue which I’m wondering if you did. When the CPU goes idle on mine there’s a high pitched noise that drives me absolutely nuts. Just moving the mouse makes the CPU usage go up enough to make it stop but sure enough, stop for a second and it’s back

[@techdistractions]

ouch yes that would be annoying! the idle power whine sounds a bit more like the fault of power circuitry on the mainboard have you tried disabling any power management features in windows? it might give some relief but it does sound like you potentially have some investigation to do on the motherboard

[@dabombinablemi6188]

I wonder if it'd take a K6-II+/III+.

[@gfunkster]

It does indeed

[@hugogarro]

Siempre quise una pero no podia comprarla en la epoca en que salió :(

[@techdistractions]

yes, unaffordable when new - I even had staff discount and still couldnt afford it!

[@fra4455]

Great👍

[@Blackadder75]

Of course not, laptops were terribad in the past, and even worse for gaming. Nobody used them unless it was really necessary for travel Even today laptops are still not great for gaming, although they are now good for business work.

[@krauterz]

we used to use laptops for playing WoW and CSS at lan parties all the time in early 2000's, I can think of several great examples. Yes, generally speaking they werent/arent as good at gaming than desktops of similar value but there is something to be said for not having to carry a CRT monitor around with you to your mates place.

[@Blackadder75]

@@krauterz yes this illustrates my point, they were crap, so every gamer had a decent desktop at home, but if necessary, (travel) people would occasionally use the laptop for some multiplayer fun, trading performance for human opponents. also Wow CS:S was 2004 or more likely 2005 or 2006, so that's already a different world compared to this 1999 example

[@FlyingDutchman19801]

@@Blackadder75 you're forgetting the realities of vintage gaming. Many vintage gamers now have a wife and children, and limited space in their home. Their spouse would frown upon a full desktop and CRT setup that would only be occasionally used. So laptops are a good alternative.

[@Blackadder75]

@@FlyingDutchman19801 hmm, not convinced, that scenario is very unlikely. If your hobby is vintage gaming on original hardware , you can make some space for it, you don't need a dedicated man cave just for a vintage PC..... you wouldn't handicap yourself on trash hardware. Spending a few hours working out a nice storage system that the whole family can life with would be more than worth it. And if you are not that dedicated to the original hardware, you could just use dosbox on a newer system.

[@techdistractions]

it's an interesting topic - I reckon there is a use case for the old laptop, but it's far from the ultimate retro experience. I used to repair a lot of these units back in the day (for a living) so for me there's a bit of extra nostalgia, maybe I am biased :-)