questions about an older laptop...recommend how to beef it up.

[Slappy The Vulcan]

Okay, I got a compaq V2570NR laptop via a trade, this is my first notebook, and I'll probibly be using it for another year or so before I can replace it with another laptop. Here is a link to the specs: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...n&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=228&product=1816346

Now I know this isnt the greatest laptop, and there have been no modifications made to it as of yet. (when I got it, it had windows vista ultimate running on it amazingly enough, with only 512 mb of RAM) I wiped vista and reloaded xp prof. and tracked down the drivers online and re-installed them. Im wanting to buy more memory (max it at 2gb.) and replace the hard-drive with a 250 GB if thats possible, (I cant find out) and I was wanting to know how to tweak this intigrated graphics chip (ATI Xpress 200m) to get the best possible 3D preformance, it has the latest drivers and the ATI control panel, but it seems to run sins of a solar empire a little sluggish, my cousins inferior desktop (seriously, its inferior 64 mb of video 2 my 128) seems to run the game much better with higher settings,anyone currently know any way to find out what settings do what?...Ive messed with the basic and advanced settings for several hours and scoured the net and can find nothing....Thanks for any help I can get...any recomendations on the best possible memory and hard drive would help also...Id like to extend this things life by a couple of years if I can.,..

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The amount of memory in your video card doesn't really affect the speed that much. It only affects how many textures it can store at a time. Also, I'm not sure your video card has hardware T&L, which is something that slows many games dramatically if you don't have it. Desktop cards--even cheap ones--have had it for years, but laptop cards tend to leave it out.

Other than hunting down an overclocking utility for your video card, I'm not sure how much you can speed up that particular subsystem. I didn't see any indication with a quick search that you can upgrade it in any way.

It looks like you can fit up to 2GB of RAM in there, so you can at least go for that. As for the hard drive... the faster, the better. Cost is really the main barrier there. I don't think it's a great idea to spend too much money upgrading this laptop when, for the same amount, you could probably buy a new (superior) one.