how much ram do I need on a laptop

[Syo Emerald]

You sound like you try to reach a minimum of requirements. Set your budget and then try to get the maximum of quality hardware you can get for that. What you are looking for is a laptop designed for gamers, because they will come with plenty of ram and a good grapic card.

[Syo Emerald]

You sound like you try to reach a minimum of requirements. Set your budget and then try to get the maximum of quality hardware you can get for that. What you are looking for is a laptop designed for gamers, because they will come with plenty of ram and a good grapic card.

[Rolig Loon]

For any computer, see the System Requirements here >>> https://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/

It doesn't make any difference whether you are running with the standard LL viewer or Firestorm. The most important difference in quality of your SL experience is the quality of your graphics procesor and your monitor, not your RAM. If you are planning to run on a laptop, look for a gaming machine that has a dedicated graphics card, not simply an Intel chip on the motherboard, and look for one that has a large screen area and can handle high resolution.  Machines that are intended for general office or casual use may work in SL,  but if you have a choice, buy one that at least has a dedicated graphics card.

[Nalates Urriah]

Rolig is right. A graphics card or chip is an important criteria for a good experience in SL. 

ATI and NVIDIA are the video chip makers. AMD and Intel are the CPU makers. NVIDIA and Intel work better for Second Life. That can be a very technical debate as to best. But, search the forum for info on ATI/NVIDIA and the AMD/Intel and you'll find most SL users having better success with NVIDIA and Intel.

SL uses OpenGL and NVIDIA does a better job of keeping their drivers in step with OpenGL. In the rest of the gaming world it is a matter of supporting DirectX/3D where ATI and NVIDIA are more equal and it is much more debatable as to which is better.

More system RAM is better.

Faster CPU's and more cores are better. The Intel i3 CPU Quad will work, but the i5 is a minimum for future Oculus Rift support. i7 is better if you can afford it. 

The recommended specifications for using Oculus Rift that came from the developers; 2 USB3 ports, NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290, Intel i5-4590, and 8GB RAM. This might be a better minimum than just what is needed for SL. The Next Gen Platform is just around the corner. More and more HMD's are coming on the market and the Oculus is planned to arrive soon as in SL 2.0/Project Sansar. See: http://blog.nalates.net/2015/10/08/second-lifer-how-to-prepare-for-project-sansar/