Hardware Others Best laptop for retro PC games?

[LainaGabranth]

I'm wondering if there's anyone with a lot of knowledge on retro computers and what would be the best one to purchase for some nostalgic gaming. I'm looking to play on the latest possible hardware that supports Windows 98, or ME if I have to. I've looked into the Thinkpad T41/T42, and as cool as those are my main problem is that I've read some of them have issues with build quality and heat, plus, I don't want to have to pay the transwoman Thinkpad tax, and would be fine getting a cheaper, way uglier Dell or HP laptop if it means not paying out the ass for a good laptop.

The games I'm looking to play are Unreal, Quake, and whatever shonky shovelware I can get my hands on from the era.

 

[esmith13]

Assuming you already own a relatively current laptop (~5yrs old or newer) may I ask if there is a reason you wouldn't just use what you have and run DOSBox on it? If it's just about understanding how to set everything up, you could just use Retroarch and DOSBox-Pure. It will run Win98/Win98SE wonderfully and emulate practically any video card and sound card combination you could want from the era. Also, once setup, it would effectively be "portable". all your hard work would not go to waste if you replaced your machine later. Hell - you could set the while thing up on a USB drive in the first place and move it from machine to machine whenever you want.

Here's a 9min video showing the setup of Win98 in DOSBox-Pure if you are curious what is involved, followed by another video of games being played in Win98 via DOSBox-Pure.

 

[LainaGabranth]

I like old tech more than I like emulation. There's nothing fun about booting up my Dell Precision M4800 with some beefy as shit hardware and just running an emulator. I want the crisp experience of a toasty as fuck Pentium M CPU struggling to be cooled by the awful, compact fans while a dying IDE hard drive grinds loudly, and Duke Nukem 3D blares through the shittiest speakers mankind has ever heard.

 

[esmith13]

LOL, nice
If you're not entertaining the Thinkpad recommendations, I've personally always liked the Toshiba Satellite's of the era (2000-2001ish). Something with a "coppermine" chipset should do the job well.
Also, when window shopping, 95% of the laptops that had a WinME sticker on them could run Win98 perfectly and had Win98 specific drivers available.

As a side note, my office is full of M6500's, M4800's and M6800's so I totally feel you on that.

 

[Chuck91]

I have an Asus m6b00n, Pentium m 725, 1 gb ram and mobility Radeon 9700, the problem is that windows XP works fine but not windows 98. Sound Blaster emulation just won't work, even with vdmsound win9x midi won't sound and if I install chipset drivers it starts to randomly reboot for no reason.

 

[eyeliner]

Asus F3JC