My page file was set to system managed size at C:\ drive.. and my winxp is installed at D:\ .. i tried installing and playing an old game i.e. star trek: elite force on C:\ and it was lagging.. i reinstalled it on C:\ and it was still lagging then i installed it on D:\ and went in winme and played.. it was smooth, i thought its the OS but then when i tried it on XP, it was almost as same smooth as there.. So not loading data from the same partition as your page file created such a huge performance difference..