I don't get it... I finally got up the courage to log into the game proper and now I'm getting 38-39fps on Standard Laptop settings instead of the 30 I was getting before from the start screen. Surely the game would push it harder than the start screen. Ah well, that's about a 1 3rd improvement in performance. Hopefully the thing won't die and it is certainly playable.

Still can't figure out how to get it to use the right video (disabling the Intel video drivers altogether makes it default to some generic Windows drivers too, even though nVidia drivers are clearly present and working) but I'll give up for now. Too tired of fighting with it after almost 24hrs of this. Should just be enjoying what I can get out of it. New lappy, that's a happy thing~

Thanks a lot to all for the attempts at assistance.