My First Laptop.
See my post:
My First Laptop ( Sony Vaio )
Why? VEXP works with any Chips&Tech video.
Nope, only with selected chips and properly works only with 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions. Even on proper chip, but with 1024x768 panel it just makes squeezed picture bigger, but not full screen.
Toshiba 460 gave me these results:
With bios stretch disabled vexp don’t change games output.
Bios option only affect 320x200 games, 640x480 always place itself in a centre of the screen:
Hi, got few questions I wanna clarify,
Firstly, could you please explain the difference between the C&T F65554 and the F65550 graphics chips? I noticed the F65554 is used in the current Toshiba 460CDT and my Siemens 710M, while the F65550 is found in the Toshiba 430CDT. What are the distinguishing features between these two 2D graphics cards? I was under the impression that prior to the advent of 3D accelerators, the CPU was responsible for most graphical computations while the GPU primarily handled image output. Is there a way to benchmark 2D GPUs?
Additionally, I have observed that older Toshiba models feature the ESS688 and Yamaha OPL3 sound chips, whereas the newer models only come with the Yamaha OPL3-SA. Could you shed some light on what happened to the ESS chipset in the newer models?
Regarding the sound card specifically, the OPL3-SA is not the same as the OPL3. The OPL3-SA is a whole sound chip whereas the OPL3 is just an FM synthesizer, so the OPL3-SAx/SA3 chips have additional features. The earlier Toshibas used the ESS688, which was basically everything that made up a sound chip of the time EXCEPT for the FM synth which it did not have internal emulation for, so pretty much any laptop that uses the 688 will have an OPL3 nearby to handle that.
The OPL3-SAx and similar chips seem great in theory but I've personally had driver problems in DOS and just haven't been able to get it working well, at least on my one laptop with the chip (WinBook XL). Might be issues specific to my machine.
Also, it is my understanding that the ESS 1688 is pin-compatible with the 688, but it does not require any additional hardware as it does FM synth internally.
I probably have too many old laptops.
vorob wrote on 2024-09-16, 18:23:What are the distinguishing features between these two 2D graphics cards?
I can only provide fps comparison for some laptops:
TwinHead SlimNote P79TE, 65554 & 200Mhz MMX:
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 14.6 fps
Doom: 64.39 fps
Quake 640x480: 16.8 fps
Duke 3D 1st level street: 46 fps
Nec Versa 6200MX, 65550 & 166Mhz MMX:
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 12.5 fps
Doom: 59.18 fps
Mitsubishi Apricot EL, 65550 & 150Mhz MMX:
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 10.7 fps
Doom: 55.16 fps
Duke 3D 1st level street: 30 fps
Hitachi MX133T, 65550 & 133Mhz
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 11.4fps
Doom: 55.2 fps
Duke 3D 1st level street: 26 fps
Fujitsu LifeBook 635T, 65550 & 133Mhz
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 11.1 fps
Doom: 54.84fps
Duke 3D 1st level street: 17 fps
Toshiba Tecra 510CDT, 65550 & 133Mhz
PC Player benchmark 640x480: 10.1 fps
Doom: 36.45fps
Duke 3D 1st level street: 8.6 fps
Doom is what you want (c) MAZter
Thanks! But this could also be because cpu is faster. Need to somehow balance them 😀
vorob wrote on 2024-09-17, 06:51:Thanks! But this could also be because cpu is faster. Need to somehow balance them 😀
Yes, unfortunately I don't have laptops with similar CPU and different GPU. 65550 & 65554 is very similar, both produced in same time:
https://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item … nologies-f65550
https://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/componen … s-b65554-hiqv64
Doom is what you want (c) MAZter
vorob wrote on 2021-04-29, 21:34:My God, why can't these laptops stretch 320x200 to full screen?)
You're missing some software, if you get hold of and run stretch.exe on any Toshiba laptop with the WD90C24 graphics chip then it'll stretch out to the full 320x240 / 640x480 with applications / games that display at 320x200 that would otherwise have black bars. I can't find this utility online anywhere other than in this archive of a T4850CT hard drive: https://archive.org/details/toshiba-t-4850-ct
Not the cleanest archive but here's the stretch utility which should work on all WD90C24 equipped Toshiba laptops:
That should include the:
Just been testing it on the T4850CT / T1950CT / T2450CT / T2400CS and it's good on all of them.
edit: For an installer, the 1RCA72.IMG (RCA72 Companion Disk) floppy image of the T2450CT recovery floppy disks is a proper installer for this. It just puts stretch.exe into the c:\dos directory and you can either type stretch manually or add it into the autoexec.bat
Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-10-30, 05:21:You're missing some software, if you get hold of and run stretch.exe on any Toshiba laptop with the WD90C24 graphics chip then it'll stretch out to the full 320x240 / 640x480 with applications / games that display at 320x200 that would otherwise have black bars.
Thank you for working on my old message. I'll give it a shot. I remember having a similar utility on my laptop; it definitely stretched DOS text stuff but didn't affect games. I'll try your file. I keep this laptop mainly because of its mouse and its vintage look. However, I'm quite disappointed with its gaming performance, particularly the WSS sound, which I couldn't get to work under DOS. So, it's in the closet, waiting for better times.
Hello. I am lloking for some decent laptop, mostly for moo2, doom, and f29. Plus some latest dos / win98 games from novalogic. Which i run on celeron 300 before
While normally i am thinkpad fan, i do have some old siemens stuff. And there is plenty of siemens scenic mobile laptops. All looks similar case, some shows usb on pentium 166mmx. Some are pentium2 300mhz. Anb beeing siemens - they would be manufactured longer, compared to main stream laptops. So - how do they looks and feels in dos ?
Thought I'd share my experiences looking for a good all-round DOS laptop. Not surprisingly it mirrors many of the comments already mentioned so far:
Toshiba Satellite Pro 480CDT
- Pentium 233MMX
- (Up to) 160MB (EDO SODIMM)
- 12", 800x600 TFT screen
- PCI C&T 65555 2MB video (BIOS option to stretch full screen + VEXP dos utility)
- ISA Yamaha OPL3-SA3
- 2x PCMCIA/Cardbus, Line in, mic, headphone out, vga, parallel, serial, IR port, PS/2, 1x USB
- One internal drive bay (cd or floppy) + one external drive connector
- (decent) top mounted stereo speakers, volume wheel
Toshiba Tecra 550CDT
- Pentium 266MMX
- (Up to) 160MB (EDO SODIMM)
- 12", 1024x768 TFT screen
- PCI S3 Virge/MX 4MB (BIOS option to stretch full screen only)
- ISA Yamaha OPL3-SA3
- 2x PCMCIA/Cardbus, Line in, mic, headphone out, vga, parallel, serial, IR port, PS/2, 1x USB
- (decent) top mounted stereo speakers, volume wheel
IBM Thinkpad 385ED
- Pentium 166MMX
- 16MB standard (think it supports up to 80MB) EDO SODIMM
- 12" 800x600 TFT OR 12" 800x600 FRSTN (aka DSTN)
- PCI Neomagic 128ZV 1MB (BIOS options to stretch full screen + Fn hotkey)
- ISA CS4236B (DOS support)
- 2x PCMCIA/Cardbus, mic, headphone out, vga, parallel, serial, IR port, PS/2
- Built in floppy and cdrom
IBM Thinkpad 600X
- P3 450-600
- (Up to) 576MB (PC100 SODIMM)
- 14", 1024x768 TFT screen
- AGP Neomagic MagicGraph256ZX 4MB (BIOS options to stretch full screen + Fn hotkey)
- PCI CS4297A (AC97 only) + PCI CS4624 (DOS support)
- 2x PCMCIA/Cardbus, Line in, mic, headphone out, vga, parallel, serial, IR port, PS/2, 1x USB
- stereo speakers (under keyboard front)
The two Toshiba models are visually very similar; if they didn't have badges on you would be hard pressed to tell the difference - the 550CDT is a few mm thinner... though that's not saying much - they are both over 2" thick.
The C&T 65555 on the 480CDT offers the ability to scale 320x200 content full screen via the BIOS option, and the VEXP utility offers some slight tweaks to how text modes are displayed, so it's really not bad at all. It will not scale 640x480 content up to native res (so for example Sim City 2000 looks similar to the unscaled Doom II image below):
The Neomagic chips can scale both 320x200 and 640x480 content to (mostly) fit full screen via the BIOS option, and has the bonus of being able to do this on-the-fly using the Fn+hotkey combination:
The Thinkpad 385ED is, in my case, severely let down by the FRSTN screen - you really don't want one of these for games at all... but the scaling does work (including via Fn+hotkey), if you are a masochist and want a DSTN screen:
The S3 Virge/MX on the 550CDT has a basic BIOS stretch option, but it's not great - probably the worst of the models I've tested so far. Unfortunately that machine has also proven the most fragile - the first time I took the original HDD caddy out to replace the internal drive (which had some dairy farmers milk-management system installed!) the ffc cable disintegrated, and I have no way of using a HDD with it at present:
The OPL3-SA audio on both Toshiba machines is, as you would expect, first-class in terms of DOS support and sound quality. The CS4236B on the 385ED is fairly decent sounding - most people would be quite happy with it, and the initialisation tools are easy to use. The CS4624 on the 600X does have DOS initialisation tools... but the FM quality is absolutely hopeless - try playing the Descent or Duke3d setup routines and you can hear immediately that most of the notes are wrong, or in some cases, completely missing. It's not an option, IMO.
Both Toshiba models are susceptible to battery leakage. The 480CDT has two batteries under the front left of the keyboard, and they are pretty easy to remove. The 550CDT on the other hand just has one, but it's at the rear right , in front of the LCD hinge and requires the entire system to be stripped down - it's far more involved. Fortunately both systems in my case were not damaged (the 480 had started to leak along the battery cable itself, but this was cleaned easily, the 550 had no leak at all - but I still removed the batteries).
My needs are perhaps a little more niche than some of those listed so far; I want a mainly-DOS system, compact, with solid SB-compatible audio and good sounding FM. Must have PCMCIA support in DOS with audio line-in to mix Roland SCP-55 audio with the onboard digital/fm output. I don't have any requirements for Windows 95/98 performance.
From the evidence so far, putting aside any theoretical performance or edge-case compatibility issues (let's face it - any PCI/AGP vga adapter is going to be more performance than virtually any DOS game will need), if you want full-screen scaled video in DOS, then a Neomagic or C&T chip is the way to go. So far I am preferring the 480CDT as the best option... though if you were to find a 385ED with the TFT screen it would be a decent choice. (it's even chunkier than the Toshiba models though....)
The next model I have on the bench is a Thinkpad 240, but this currently has a broken screen - all working except the screen. So I'm trying to source a replacement (but it's proving difficult).
My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net
The Virge MX scales excellently on my Kapok laptop with it - weird. Must be a BIOS thing then.
I probably have too many old laptops.
Not bad DOS laptop for this money:
Doom is what you want (c) MAZter
