mass effect 2 etc? First of all here are my laptops specs:

P8400 2.26 ghz duo core processor
9600m gt 512 mb graphcis card
4gb ram
windows vista 32bit

in the past I have played fallout 3 and fallout new vegas on medium graphics at above 40 fps at all times at 1280x800 resolution. I have also plated mass effect 2 on 1280x800 resolution.
I thought i would be able to play skyrim on medium graphics with ease. There is even someone on youtube claiming that they can play skyrim on 40-50 fps on medium using my same graphics card.
However, i can't even play it on low without going below 20 fps. I have tried the better skyrim performance mods and i have got the latest nvidia driver (290.36) and still i cannot get my framerate to go above 30. What is going on?