Okay. I have a test version up and ready to be tested
This is just a prelimary version, so I haven't bothered with a readme or any kind of version numbering. It removes the Japanese coastal traffic, as well as the non-major powers coastal traffic and there merchants as well. I did some basic testing, and transition from the menu to ingame is about 10-15% better on my system. Performance with time acceleration (particularly high levels) is considerably smoother as well.
It's in JSGME format, so simply extract it to the mods folder in your SH4 directory, and enable it in JSGME and you'll be all set. You can download it
here.
I didn't encounter any problems with it, but if you do, just let me know here. It'd be great if you guys could post results with it as well. Not looking for exact numbers, just a general idea.
My system specs:
Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB of RAM
GF 7600 GT
So, enjoy