There's a lot more to frame rate then system speed and video prowess. Hard drive space, defrag status, RAM speed, controller types, and yes, even your connection speed.
There is a way to boot directly into AH, I know. One of my squaddies (13th T.F.W. on F4) had to do this with his 200 MMX system. You might still be able to find the methodology over on falcon40.com, though Frugal is updating the site even as I write this. The file is F4TWK.zip and explains the method very well (though you will have edit the batch file included with the zip). I DO NOT recommend this unless you are very comfortable with editing Windows configuration. However, if you do it right you will see as much as an 80% increase in frame rates.
If you are still using an old 8-bit joystick card (whether it is in an ISA slot, built into the MB, or not), you are losing frames.
Smaller increases in performance can be ahieved simply by reducing the resource load on your system. Free up some disk space, load more RAM, defrag, and switch to USB controllers.
GeForce? I'm holding out for VooDoo 5.
Voss 13th T.A.S.