Retrogaming on netbooks. Is it possible?

I'm a retro-RPGamer and want to carry my classic RPGs everywhere to play. I have a notebook. But, it's not so suitable for the business trips or holidays. So, I'm thinking of buying a netbook. Netbooks are relatively cheap and can satisfy my retro-gaming i think. I found a Datron netbook.1,6 Atom, 2 Gb Ram, 250 Gb Harddisk on it and comes with freedos. I'm planning to install Windows XP of course, but I am curious of its performance and compatibility. I have some questions to the people who use their netbooks for retrogaming. I appreciate if you can answer my questions.

1) Can I install Daemon Tools and use it as a virtual cd drive in my netbook?
2) Are there any compability issues with the Infinity Engine games, Fallout 1 - 2 and Arcanum?
3) Can I play NWN 1 and all its expansions, Arx Fatalis, Dungeon Siege 1 - 2, ToEE, Gothic 1 - 2, Morrowind, Fable with enough performance?
3) Since max screen resolution is 1024*600, can I play Sacred on it which has a 1024*768 fixed res?
4) What's the performance with Dosbox? Since it's an emulator it demands much power especially for last dos era games. For ex, Realms Of The Haunting, Battlespire, etc...
5) Can I install Virtual PC on it, and run Windows 98, 95 or dos for older the games that have compability issues with XP?
6) Can I plug an external monitor or HDTV and keyboard on it without having problems?

What's the graphic card? And does it have integrated VRAM or not?

It has the standart onboard intel graphic chip.

Then forget about games. Games like Fallouts, Arcanum and Baldur's Gate should work but you won't be able to play NWN, TOEE, Arx Fatalis etc.

3) Since max screen resolution is 1024*600, can I play Sacred on it which has a 1024*768 fixed res?

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No. Technically you can but some parts of the screen will be outside screen and you won't be able to see it.

1) Can I install Daemon Tools and use it as a virtual cd drive in my netbook?
5) Can I install Virtual PC on it, and run Windows 98, 95 or dos for older the games that have compability issues with XP?
6) Can I plug an external monitor or HDTV and keyboard on it without having problems?

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I don't see any problem with these.

Konjad said:

Then forget about games. Games like Fallouts, Arcanum and Baldur's Gate should work but you won't be able to play NWN, TOEE, Arx Fatalis etc.

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Are you sure about that? Do you also have a netbook and test it?

No, I don't have netbook but I own two notebooks (one is broken though :< ) and I know what a pain in the ass shared RAM could be. My broken (and better) notebook had ATI Mobility Radeon 200M with 128 MB VRAM shared. I could play on it older games, like Morrowind, but couldn't Oblivion for example. And your graphic card is probably even worse (but what exactly is your model?). I wouldn't recommend buying netbook if you don't have second computer to play games on.

I also have a more than enough desktop, a notebook and a Xbox 360. I'm totally a gaming freak really. I know that a netbook can not run Oblivion. I'm thinking to use it for old games (2003 and prior) anyway.

I cannot say for sure but I doubt a common netbook can play anything requiring 3D hardware acceleration but it can play 2d games just fine. I've seen them play Starcraft and Diablo 2 without issue.

Wait a couple of months and buy either a Samsung N510 or a Lenovo S12.

They will be the first "gaming" netbooks, and they accomplish this by having the Nvidia ION chipset - which is basically a Geforce 9400 mobile with the Atom CPU.

It won't be a powerhouse - and you should take special care to note that it's a SINGLE CORE CPU. That said, most DOS games will likely run just fine as long as we're talking early nineties. Going beyond that, you might have trouble playing games in DosBox. Games like Battlespire and Realms of the Haunting are particularly demanding in an environment like DosBox - so you can forget about them. You can hardly play them on modern rigs in DosBox with high detail.

The good news, though, is that it'll play many modern games just fine. Most modern games depend largely on the GPU and not so much the CPU. You won't be playing Crysis in anything but low details - but something like Call of Duty 4 would run quite adequately. None of the "modern" games you mentioned should have trouble running at decent frames.

I'm gonna pick one up myself as soon as they get released.

OK ... some actual experience:

- First, if you can wait ~2 months, do what D'Artagnan says and get an ION powered netbook. Should make a *huge* difference.

- Next, here are some of the games I am playing / have played on my Lenovo S10:
> Fallout 1 & 2
> Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
> the rest of the Infinity engine games
> Divine Divinity, Arcanum, Wizardry 8
> Temple of Elemental Evil
> Neverwinter Nights & both expansions and all Premium Mods (have to run on low graphics)
> Old FPS such as Jedi Knight, Half-Life, Unreal, SiN, etc
> Sacred Gold
> Plants vs. Zombies
> Jedi Knight II
> Return to Castle Wolfenstein
> Medal of Honor Allied Assault Warchest (includes both expansions)

... and who knows what else ...

So long as you are reasonable in your expectations a netbook can be a solid game machine. I'm actually going to be starting a 'netbook gamer' column at Gear Diary soon.

DArtagnan said:

Wait a couple of months and buy either a Samsung N510 or a Lenovo S12.

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Bah, anything with more than 10 (10.1, 10.2) inch, 300 EUR price tag and weight above 1.2kg is not a netbook imho. Too expensive and clumsy to use. They gone to far with these expensive and "large" netbooks. Something with 10 inch, ION platform and 2GB RAM would be perfect. Like ASUS ION330 on the nettop market for 275 EUR.

Dark Savant said:

Bah, anything with more than 10 (10.1, 10.2) inch, 300 EUR price tag and weight above 1.2kg is not a netbook imho. Too expensive and clumsy to use. They gone to far with these expensive and "large" netbooks. Something with 10 inch, ION platform and 2GB RAM would be perfect. Like ASUS ION330 on the nettop market for 275 EUR.

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Once something like that is available - sure.

But I don't think 11-12 inch and 1.4kg is bad at all. Also, it's all that's going to be available for a while - or so I've heard.

Upgrading to 2GB is a must, though.

I would prefer the 10" form factor and ION chip ... anything bigger and it is encroaching on the 13" space and you are getting into value differentiation issues, IMO.

I'd prefer a smaller screen myself - but since it doesn't come with one, we kinda have to live with it, unless a significantly larger and heavier notebook is preferable.

To me, the weight is more of an issue than the extra inch of screen size. If you're going to really game - you'll be needing a mouse, anyway, so it'll take up more space than we'd like.

But carrying it around should be no hassle - and with less than 1.5kg - the netbooks mentioned will do just fine.

txa1265 said:

OK ... some actual experience:

- First, if you can wait ~2 months, do what D'Artagnan says and get an ION powered netbook. Should make a *huge* difference.

- Next, here are some of the games I am playing / have played on my Lenovo S10:
> Fallout 1 & 2
> Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
> the rest of the Infinity engine games
> Divine Divinity, Arcanum, Wizardry 8
> Temple of Elemental Evil
> Neverwinter Nights & both expansions and all Premium Mods (have to run on low graphics)
> Old FPS such as Jedi Knight, Half-Life, Unreal, SiN, etc
> Sacred Gold
> Plants vs. Zombies
> Jedi Knight II
> Return to Castle Wolfenstein
> Medal of Honor Allied Assault Warchest (includes both expansions)

... and who knows what else ...

So long as you are reasonable in your expectations a netbook can be a solid game machine. I'm actually going to be starting a 'netbook gamer' column at Gear Diary soon.

Click to expand...

I just want a cheap, small, retrogaming machine. The games you played in your netbook are more than enough for my retro-gaming needs. I think I'm gonna buy a netbook, fill its harddisk full of classic games, and dive into it.

I have a question for you. You said playing NWN with low graphics. When NWN1 released in 2002, I can play it with high details except shadows in 800*600 easily on my Pentium III 600, 256 mb, Geforce 2MX 64 Mb machine. Do you just turned off the shadows to play smoothly, or other features like low textures as well?

Anyway I did some research and learned that Arx Fatalis, Gothic 1 and 2 can be played smoothly. Especially Arx Fatalis can be played smoothly at 1024*600 resolution.

Check out this site: http://mdj.us/gaming/netbook-games/

Crap - yep, failed to include G1, G2, Arx, M&M 6 & 7, and more I'm sure I'm forgetting.

NWN - I really just used defaults - but I'm also running it on my Mac right now with everything turned up to max, so visually it is a huge difference.