[jonesy-the-cat]

I always stick with Win 98se because the newer ones never have a good reputation with gamers. Some cheap improvements might be to use a ps2 keyboard and mouse which are faster than usb, use a high frequency mouse which is smoother/less jerky. No matter what your system is, you should optimize it, i.e. latest drivers (like Nvidia's Detonator), minimize the number of progs running in background, especially qttask.exe (try running msconfig), defrag, don't let windows manage your virtual memory but use a fixed size, do not use windows default settings for internet communication but set your own TCP Receive Window. I have done all these things and each one sped up my system. Lastly, just lower your video settings.