Improving fps rate on a laptop

Hi I recently joined GW Guru, and currently wonder if anyone can help me improve the fps rate for Guild Wars on my laptop. it's a gateway model laptop (P-6313) with windows vista, 3 GB memory, graphics card I think is windows Aero, Intel Premium Dual CPU T2390 processor.

When I play on a normal explorable area in NF the fps is at around 25-30 fps, however about every minute or so the frame rate will drop significantly, making the game really choppy, and then go back to it's normal frame rate. My questions are is there a way to stop the frame rate from dropping like that, and how can I increase the fps. (I have vsync turned off) Thanks for replying in advance.

Tweak the graphics settings, turn off high end stuff like anti-aliasing, set most of the shaders / reflections and such to low.

Update your graphics drivers.

I'm running it on a Dell 9300, I did these things and it's steadily playable but the PC overheats a bit so I put a fan behind my computer. Looking into getting a gaming comp at some point.

Turn off Aero. Its is pretty and all but that usually is one of the culprits for reductions in FPS.


Also what is your video card?

Actually, I thought Aero WAS the graphics card for this laptop, guess not. Then I think its Intel (R) Graphics Media Accelerator. How do you turn off Aero exactly?

Running games on an onboard card is always going to be laggy...

Is that what Intel is? Or do you mean the windows Aero? Btw thanks Seraphite, I switched the windows aero with the classic look and the game so far hasn't been doing that fps reduction.

Aero is vista's fancy 3D desktop interface. it's whats responsible for those animated windows and such. it is a graphical effect being run by whatever 3D accelerator your computer has. in this case, you have intel's integrated solution, which is pretty terrible for gaming.

Yeah, I know, please don't remind me > < I used to have a somewhat better desktop computer, but too many viruses...So someone in my family got me this laptop, although they really should have waited and let us chip in money to get a better one, but oh well you do with what you're given :P

On the plus side, it play Guild Wars and PSO pretty well, and I can still play my emulator games perfectly (I own those games irl)