I'm coming to the conclusion that on my laptop, my ATI video card does not have built in memory, but instead hacks off a portion of my sys RAM...after all, I have a full Gb, and my computer claims to only have 960 Mb...Now, I have plenty of RAM, and I'd like to devote about 128 Mb to video...but can't find the control for such a thing.

Anyone know anything about this?

It will be in the BIOS if anywhere, but most integrated video cards are capped off at about 64MB. You could try raising the AGP apperture size (again in the BIOS) to 128MB, that might help.

I don't know where to go to get into these "BIOS"

When you boot your computer watch the screen. It should say something like press F2 to enter setup. Do that, and there you have BIOS.

Be VERY careful in there if you don't know what you're doing!

Yep, it can be a disastrous area if your not careful. But it is also worth looking around your BIOS, and making yourself familiar with the different parts of it. That way if you are ever wanting to do something/have to do something for say a repair etc. then it is much easier and quicker.