shader 2.0

[_Nel_]

Your old laptop was a bit better than the new one, according to this website:
GeForce 8600 GT - GeForce 310

Unfortunatly, you can only find outdated infos about Regnum requirements
> http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/index...c=20&subsec=41

In (very very) brief for ATI and Nvidia video cards:
- first digit means series, higher = newer
- second digit means target market level, 1-3 = lowest entry level, 8-9 = best gaming performance, 5-6 is usualy enough for regnum at shaders 4.0 with good fps.

Ie, Nvidia 260 is much much better than Nvidia 310. It's a well known swindle with video card model number.
So I'm not shocked at your poor performances with your Nvidia 310m.

As a piece of advice, I have a Nvidia 9600 GT, and I would not recommend to play with a worse video card if you want shaders 4.0 and good fps.
You can take a look at the link I already gave you, to quickly see if the video cards you're looking for is equal, worse or better than the one I have.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rd,2964-7.html

Another piece of advice, if you want to play games, never buy a laptop. It's expensive, hard to repair, less efficient, heat up a lot and can heading to an overheat very quickly.

You can also search for GPU benchmarks if you want more accurate details. Here is an example:
> http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html