Thanks for the advice, Saxon but *ahem* I went out and bought one a few hours after posting that. Got me an fx701, and I think I'm in love
Anyway, it will do 800x600 easy, and according to the specs it should (although I haven't tried it yet) handle 1024x768 on it's own screen.
Unfortunately I seem to have left my SEIV Gold disk at my brother's house when I was handing over my old computer and installing the game there. (he has a legitimate copy of his own, but I figured he'd have lost it=-) This means I won't be able to play SEIV on my new machine for a while. On the upside, my brother should be joining the forum just as soon as I can bully him into signing up. Suggested usernames for him will be welcomed, although I'm sure he'll come up with something interesting of his own.
In the meantime I'll just have to soldier on with my Tosh laptop=-)