I have a similar setup that I was having the same issues with. (Q6600, XPSP2, 3GB Ram, 5 boxing) Basically, everything worked fine most of the time, until I went to a capitol city or Shattrah. I was already running off of a single install folder, and I have a top notch internet connection. I found the upgrade to a 64 bit OS + more RAM (I had 3 GB, I now have 6GB) made an IMMENSE difference. The Resource Manager tool in Vista is showing my memory usage with 5 clients at around 4.75 GB, so that is 1.75 GB worth of memory that my system was previously having to shuttle back and forth between RAM and a page file. I can now do mounted loops around the city without loosing a clone, whereas before I had gotten in the habit of stopping every few meters to let stragglers catch up. My disk usage is extremely low, so I don't think hard drive speed effects performance once you eliminate the page file hits.