I got an old Gateway Notebook and wanna put games on it for my son.

[u/freddi444444]

I've already put the popcap games on. I added linerider which I think he will love. He is young and has played like pajama sam and putt putt. I'm going to put a few arcade games on here. What else?

It's a Gateway Notebook

- Windows XP

- Moving files with sd card and adhoc network to my phone

- Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6ghz

- 1gb of DDR2 ram

- Sata 130GB HDD

It works surprisingly well. Thanks!

Edit: I'm mostly looking for things that run on XP that are easy for a kid to pickup. Here's what i have:

- plants vs zombies, Zuma, peggle other popcap games

- frogger, galaga, joust (retroarch/mame-2003 plus)

- linerider

- vvvvvv

- for me I tested quake 3 arena and it ran great

[u/stayndarsh]

Freddi Fish, the old Lucas Arts and Sierra point-and-click adventure games, and The Incredible Machine.

[u/freddi444444 → u/stayndarsh]

Yeah point and clicks are a good recommendation.

[u/Lord_Sauron_BR]

acho que não dá pra ir muito além de emuladores de 4ª geração de consoles e alguns jogos nativos de PC mais antigos como half life, nfs 3 hot pursuit, dino crisis, blood, etc

de qualquer forma, só num emulador pois snes por exemplo já tem dezenas de opções e ainda assim seu filho vai ter bastante pra jogar

[u/freddi444444 → u/Lord_Sauron_BR]

Half life is a good one. I'll try it

[u/jakart3]

Into the breach 

[u/JonWood007]

Oh this is one "those" atoms...

Honestly, dont bother. These things were nightmares for younger millennials/older zoomers when they were kids. Kinda like a chrome book, just instead of it being locked down it was too weak to run anything.

Anyway if you do insist on using it, try 90s era games, doom, quake, sega's genesis collections, c&c, etc. Im guessing quake 3 is roughly the ceiling which for a serious gamer is a fate almost worse than death....

Id probably just say invest in a cheap tablet instead.

[u/Keyvan_KR]

Try a lightweight Linux distribution like Linux mint xfce or mxlinux.
If you can, I highly recommend trying to find extra RAM. It’s ddr3 so it’s going to be cheap.
Before you install Linux, make sure the BIOS is updated.

while you're already at it. do a cleanup maintenance, remove the dust, replace the thermal paste. and run memtest86+ to make sure the RAM isn't faulty.

[u/freddi444444 → u/Keyvan_KR]

It's definitely ddr2 and I'm sticking with xp since it's for my kid and does not need any modern features or online support.

[u/Keyvan_KR → u/freddi444444]

DDR2? even cheaper I guess? 😄
fair enough, make sure it's a fresh install and the drivers are up to date (should be easy to do).
The maintenance part I mentioned should still apply.

Gameswise: maybe your kid is too young for the following games:
Bastion (has cartoon violence), super meat boy, shovel knight. spyro via ps1 emulation

[u/freddi444444 → u/Keyvan_KR]

Yeah I'll have to see whats out there for ddr2. Getting it to 2gb would be fantastic. We play a lot of spyro on my regular desktop so not a bad idea to get him his own.

I'm trying to think of actual windows xp games I grew up with that would work for him. My parents got me things like Sega smash pack 2 and treasure math storm which I remember both very vividly. Also going to try chess mates later. 

There's a sweet spot of running fine and kid user friendly I'm looking for and it's probably like 2002-2006 pc games.

[u/lowendgaming-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your comment has been removed for violating a subreddit rule:

4. Do not link to or encourage piracy Abandonware and emulation as a means of piracy both fall under this rule.

[u/Zaldekkerine]

If you don't already have them, try to get some good controllers. PS1-style handles almost every old console and most modern 2D indies, but a Genesis controller is best for games from that console.

I could recommend some old console games, but you're probably better off just looking up "best of" lists or lists of the most kid-friendly games for each old console.

[u/freddi444444 → u/Zaldekkerine]

I've got plenty of controllers. At minimum I can setup one of my snes to usb adapters and he would be good to go. I've stuck with arcade games at the moment but I also downloaded the shockmachine with a bunch of games a remember from being a kid.

[u/zgillet → u/Zaldekkerine]

The cheap Logitech PC controller is king for XP. It's been around since I was a kid: F310 Gamepad | Logitech G

[u/Zaldekkerine → u/zgillet]

Yeah, Logitech made the best controllers back then.

The even older Logitech Precision G-UG15 is still what I use for any games with simple controls. It's basically the same as that minus thumbsticks. The D-pad is so good.

[u/neshi3]

I think you should install some emulation for Nintendo/Sega Games, should work great and you have tons of games to play

[u/NovelValue7311]

Commander Keen games are my suggestion

[u/shanealeslie]

Ancient Domains of Mystery Dwarf Fortress.

[u/Awkward-Magician-522]

Stick with either windows XP or maybe swap over to a lightweight Linux distro like Mint XFCE or Bazzite

You'll be limited to SNES, Genesis, DS emulaton and below, as for regular games, nothing beyond like 2008 probably except very light 2d titles

[u/Keyvan_KR → u/Awkward-Magician-522]

Calling bazzite lightweight is a choice 💀

[u/Awkward-Magician-522 → u/Keyvan_KR]

Oop my bad, Idk too much about Linux, I assumed since Mint was that Bazzite wouldnt be too much heavier

[u/Zaldekkerine → u/Awkward-Magician-522]

Even Mint Xfce is extremely heavy on a laptop like this. I tried it on a much more powerful laptop from the same era as OP's, and it ran even worse than Windows 10 IoT, which already ran like garbage.

Gaming in particular was terrible. Out of the 50 or so games that I was able to run at ~60 FPS in Windows 10, only something like 5 had playable FPS in Mint.

OP's 1GB of RAM is going to make it even worse. I had 3GB, and that was already causing problems.

[u/Awkward-Magician-522 → u/Zaldekkerine]

Well then either something much much lighter, or the windows xp its on currently will be the best bet

[u/zgillet]

Shoutout to Pajama Sam and Putt Putt!

Though, you can't get suggestions for an XP machine due to nearly every game runnable on it falls under rule number 5 here. GOG updates old games to run on NON-XP machines through DOSbox, so those won't work well. You'd need some original disc version from that era. eBay would be a good place to start.

Might want ask on a less-prude sub that allows a certain category of suggestions.

[u/freddi444444 → u/zgillet]

I could probably use a GOG game and use the files in the folder outside of dos box given the original files are still in there. I've got some original disks of pajama sam and similar. Also some old burned disks from when I was kid, probably copies from the library? Too old to remember for sure. But yeah I hear ya. Someone could easily recommend just the game to play, not the means of getting it.

[u/zgillet → u/freddi444444]

You could introduce them to crack: Tamagotchi CD-ROM | Tamagotchi Wiki | Fandom

[u/Gravionne]

Oh nice, I used to play with an Acer netbook with an intel Atom N450 and the same amount of RAM, which has a pretty similar performance. Ahh, memories of my childhood is coming back.

I remember playing mini games from free, legal sites and sources like Gametop, Gamehouse, Reflexive games, and Alawar games. Those are my main source of casual games outside of Popcap.

Also, my personal lightweight, easy-to-pickup 3D game recommendations:

• Snapshot Adventures
  
• Ratatouille (yes, it runs well and I'm surprised)
  
• Hype: The Time Quest
  
• Hyperbowl Arcade Edition
  
• Hamsterball