[antiRepublicrat]

I do have to admit I just noticed ALL of the video memory isn’t shared, I knew this model had “shared” video memory but apparently it does actually have 64Mb onboard as well.

That helps quite a bit.

there’s really not much if any difference in noticable performance between it and my other laptop that has 2Gb RAM and shared video of 32Mb.

The other laptop is configured for half the minimum video memory required. Sure that's not a typo? If not, it's understandable why it runs so slow too. Configure your shared graphics memory to 128 or 256 MB and watch things get a lot faster.

[Golden Eagle]

Yes, typo, 32Mb “onboard” not shared ( I think shared was 256). Do all laptops with “shared” have some small bit of onboard? All I’ve checked today do. I’ll admit I was surprised how well Utimate with Aero is running with only 512, but it is doing quite well, especially after it “settled in”.