Newbie Questions

[TM]

Played the Demo for a few days and received the full Version on Saturday. I have two questions:

1) Performance: SE-SF runs very well on my Win 2000 IBM X30 laptop with 1.0GHz PIII and Intel 830M Graphics, however when I use my HP a320n with Athelon 2800 and GeForce4 MX440 graphics and Windows XP the frame rate during combat slows to a crawl. Does anyone know what is going on here? The HP should have significantly better graphics performance. I have tried the 'Safe" option with no difference.

2) Is there a way to play SE-SF without the game CD in the drive? I normally use my IBM X30 for gaming and it only supports a CD drive when attached to it's docking station. Unfortunately, due to family and work, most of my gaming time is either on airplanes or in hotel rooms on business trips. This is a major pain that I did not expect from my SE-III and SE-IV history.