Just brought this Fujitsu LifeBook 985tx would it be any good for retro gaming
Posted by Enough-Relief-2868@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 17 comments
Lukeno94@reddit
It has a TFT screen, therefore it is always going to be good for some form of retro gaming. As others have stated, Windows 98SE is a much better fit for this than XP, especially as gaming is your intended use case for it. The stock 32MB of RAM is the bare minimum for 98 in many cases, but it uses SD-RAM so it should be fairly cheap to upgrade it to the official maximum of 160MB.
In terms of gaming - you've got a 233 MHz Pentium MMX CPU and a 4MB GPU. This means you might be able to play the earliest 3D-accelerated games, but many of those want at least an 8MB chip, so you will be a bit limited. However, it should play almost any 2D-era game, with the caveat that sound may or may not work depending on exactly what sound chip they used.
66659hi@reddit
Make sure to remove the CMOS battery. The ones in these old laptops leak.
Lukeno94@reddit
I can't speak specifically for the 900 series, but Fujitsu generally used lithium cells soldered to the board at this point for the CMOS battery, and only went to the leaky NiMH batteries a bit later on. Some did use NiMH backup batteries though, so that is worth checking for.
DegenerateCuber@reddit
Any machine is good for retro gaming as long as the games are retro enough
Crashman09@reddit
Checkers is playable on stone tablet.
I think you are on to something
namur17056@reddit
These used to be given to the uk Fujitsu field engineers back in the day. If my memory serves me well
Talismook@reddit
Would be quite a nice Windows 98 Machine, but I consider XP on a machine that old tantamount to animal abuse.
Necessary-Score-4270@reddit
Dammmm that Boi thicc. You got a ruler?
avdolainen@reddit
oh man, that's the one I was using during my career early days ... memories ... for gaming on this guy i would recommend to install win98, also afaik screen wasn't the best one, so consider external display.
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
Hmmm... were it me.
Hardware...
- if not already, upgrade ram to maximum 160 MB (it should have 32 MB soldiered onto board, and 2 expansion slots of up to 64 MB each)
- check the CMOS battery (this is NOT a more standard CR2032 but either a 3V Li-ion or 7.2V/3.6V Ni-MH)
- check the system battery, but if you do need one, ebay looks to be the cheaper option.
- looks like you have a 5 GB HDD 2.5" IDE, if so, that may be the original HDD. And the interface is apparently a ATA-66. which is half the maximum that IDE/PATA can handle, but was probably about as fast as was common in 1997. Given that, suggest a CF card and a CF to IDE/PATA adapter.
Original 16GB CF Card,UDMA Speed Up to 60MB/s,Original Camera Memory Card
- https://www.amazon.com/Original-CompactFlash-Speed-Camera-Memory/dp/B0D9NY1FW9/
Syba Dual Compact Flash CF to 44 Pin IDE/PATA 2.5" Adapter Enclosure
- https://www.amazon.com/Syba-Compact-Adapter-Enclosure-SD-ADA45006/dp/B0036DDXUM/
.
Software... I would probably install a light Windows 95C or 98SE installation on it, rather than XP.
Needed 3rd Party Support:
- Run WindowsUpdateRestored.COM
- System Drivers: JHRobotics Patcher
- System Drivers: Leading Wintech Rain (Fixes suspend/resume for notebooks or virtual machines)
- Display Drivers: BearWindows Universal VESAVBE Video Display Driver (allows modern resolutions, but no acceleration support)
- USB Storage Drivers: LoneCrusader and rloew XUSBSUPP (95B/95C)
- USB Storage Drivers: Maximus Decim Generic USB driver (98/ME)
Optional 3rd Party Support:
Application
- Document Viewer - KernelApps Kernel Document Viewer
- Office Suite - Apache OpenOffice
- Text Editor - Don Ho Software Notepad-Plus-Plus
Internet
- Browsing - The RetroZilla development team RetroZilla
- Downloading for FTP - FileZilla Project FileZilla FTP Client
Media
- Playing - Audio-Video - VideoLAN VLC media player
Enough-Relief-2868@reddit (OP)
Thanks so much that’s extremely helpful
Heavy-Judgment-3617@reddit
if you intend on a lot of games, may want a bigger CF card than I listed. if install 95C do not make partitions bigger than 32 GB, if install 98SE, do not make partitions bigger than 128 GB.
XFX1270@reddit
I'd suggest putting Windows 98SE on it instead of XP but then yes it should run plenty of DOS and earlier Windows games.
Enough-Relief-2868@reddit (OP)
When I receive it I will appreciate the suggestion though
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
If what I'm finding is accurate, it's got an ATI graphics chip. It'll do games from 9x and early XP decently
Enough-Relief-2868@reddit (OP)
Thanks so much
Accurate-Campaign821@reddit
I've seen others mention a NeoGraph 2MB chip also. Either way classics like Age of Empires, Red Alert etc should run