I would try getting the RAM up to 2gb, especially if your laptop has a shared video memory configuration. www.crucial.com

One of the things I will also caution against is laptops without a dedicated video card. These machines are ALWAYS MUCH SLOWER, and reduce the amount of AVAILABLE RAM. So even though it says 1gb of RAM and a 128mb shared Video card, the amount of RAM you have available for applications is 1024 - 128.