Reduced performance with a better machine

Hey there
I just bought a Toshiba M305D-S4830 brand new and one of the activities I do with it is playing Call of Duty 4. The thing is that I used to play it with a way worst machine (Compaq CQ50-102LA, Sempron 2.0, 1GB ram, nVidia 8200G M), those days I had a bad performance and the graphics were pretty ugly, but still I could play decently in multiplayer.
Now with the Toshiba I'm getting a really slow performance while in-game and it doesnt get any better, even if lower the resolution to 800x600, lower than what I used to have in my old machine.
I'm quite confused since I think AMD Turion Ultra Dual-Core Mobile 2.1Ghz with 4GB and an ATI Radeon 3100 Graphic card, that should perform, at least perform better than the Compaq.
I would really appreciate if you guys can tell me if theres anything wrong with the BIOS settings or something like that, my power plan is always on High Performance, so is not that what is wrong.
Thanks a lot.

 

Did you remember to update the drivers?

 

drivers? how do i do that?
is that a must-do on a new machine?

 

You say you're experiencing slow performance during multiplayer?
Could this be an issue with your connection?
Have you tried playing in single player to do a comparison.

If this issue has nothing to do with your connection,
then are you running the same game at the same resolution/graphic settings?

If I'm not mistaken, the ATI card you have isn't that much better than your previous Nvidia. Trying to now run the game at high settings might not be a feasible idea.

EDIT: Sorry, I missed out your comment about trying to run it at a lower resolution.
But just to confirm, have you tried running the other in game graphic settings at low?

 

Hi and thank you for your responses.
Im absolutely sure it has nothing to do with my internet connection, but now that you mention it i do have a slightly higher ping with this new machine and I am not sure of why is that either.
I tried to run the game at the same settings than in my old machine, but it keeps jumping from time to time.
Now, I know Radeon 3100 isnt a great card or anything, but, assuming is slightly better than the nVidia 8200M G and that the rest of the machine is way way better, I could expect a better performance, at least a little better, no?

 

Radeon 3100 and nVidia 8200M are about the same in terms of performance.

 

the 3200 is better than the 8200m not the 3100

 

Where can I compare the specs for both of these cards?
And also, after all this, shouldnt I expect better performance?
If so, how can I tweak the settings to improve performance?

Thanks a lot to all of you