This lappy here 2.3 dual core 3 gig ram running starry night pro plus needs all that power to run smoothly i close all other programs down to make it scroll smooth but i may not have a decent video card hidden in here....she is stock standard.
Windows: Requires Windows XP, 800 MHz or higher processor, and 512 MB RAM. 64 MB OpenGL 1.4 capable graphics card (OpenGL 2.0 is required for features like shaded sky and animated grass). Minimum recommended screen resolution of 1024 x 768.
It runs it fine, if a tiny little bit sluggishly when doing slews. That's with the CPU/memory intensive All Sky Map enabled, too. Once that's disabled, she works better.
Also, you have to enable 1024x768 mode (uncompressed) in order to be able to click on things correctly. You can run it in 1024x600, but, you won't be clicking on what you think you are.
Whilst I have Starry Night Pro Plus 6 running, I also have PHD Guiding, my Canon EOS Utility capture software, and, sometimes I'll put on music or watch a video, as well. These little things can do a hell of a lot.
I have an eepc and run SN6 no problems. You can make SN jump to where ever you want to go to rather than scroll or if you press the space bar it does the same thing.