I use a MacBook Pro laptop because it's convenient, it's lighter, and I'm in college. My parents purchased it for me and I'm not an ungrateful prick to just say "NO MOM OMG IM PC"

offtopic.

Anywho: running any "heavy" programs makes this thing start to sound like it's entering warp speed, making it incredibly hot, experience some lag issues (the framerate stays at 60, but there's decent pauses in between processes at time), but mostly it just feels like a fat guy trying to sprint. He can get up there, he can stay there, but he certainly doesn't like it.

The only thing I've actually done so far was purchase an external cooler so that my laptop doesn't burn the little hair I haven't shaved off my chest. Is there anything like additional RAM or something I can add to my laptop to alleviate the problem?

Mac sucks lol anyway close all programs that are not needed

Mac HW and OS are fine it shouldn't do this.


If you want install a light weight OS then it may help.

Anyone in particular you'd recommend ? Pretty sure I'm just using the standard OS, Snow Leopard or what ever

Go to Utilities in your applications folder and check out Activity Monitor.
Find out which programs are hogging your CPU and demolish them using it.
That's usually what I do, and it helps lots.

Basically what aracoon said,

Also if you don't like OS X, just use bootcamp

I did that and everything came up like 0-.5% except for toribash, which registered at using 141.9% of my usage...

This is why I hate both Macs and laptops. Put them together and it's hell.
Firstly, check which Processor you have. Having a good processor with no cpu is less then useless.
If it was a PC I would use PCOptimizer, that shit speeds stuff up by like 200%.
Figure out what specs you have on it, that would probably help figure out if there's anything else you can do to speed it up.

Does this help?

Yeah.
i7 is good, the GHz probably could be higher. That might be causing a problem, but I doubt it.
4GB of ram is good for most laptops, they can go for a couple days in sleep mode and run fine. Mine is 8 years old and it can do that.
Graphics doesn't really have much to do with it since you're mac can handle it.
Try turning down your resolution a notch first to see if it might be making it run slower. If you notice an immediate change in performance when running a program, then you should keep it at that resolution. It's much better to sacrifice some pixels then have your laptop on your lap and having it burn your balls to a crisp.
I'd try running an anti-virus, there's always the possibility that somewhere in there there's a random virus clogging shit up. Happened to me once, went on for weeks before I realized. Do regular virus scans and defrags, those will make sure your computer isn't infected and keeps it organized so it runs faster. Trust me you'll notice the difference right away if you haven't defragged it in ages(4 years).
Pretty much all I can think of now, those are generally things which lots of people don't pay attention to since they think it's a waste of time to bother seeing if you have a virus or to organize the data.