[CaptainHaplo]

9 times out of 10 the game running slowly is not due to cpu horsepower. What video card are you using? How much RAM do you have in your system - and running what OS? These pieces of information are very important.

I would HIGHLY advise against OC'ing the cpu at this point. Its probably not going to net you what you want - ie: a substantial increase in performance. People already have talked about the importance of tempature and hardware limitations when it comes to OC'ing - but honestly the biggest rule of thumb for an overclocker is make sure your doing what your doing for the right reason. If you just wanted to have bragging rights that your getting more cycles - then I would say ok - but in this case you are looking to gain a performance increase - and its very unlikely that the CPU is the bottleneck.

Most of the time with games like SH4, the graphics is the first place to look at when you have performance issues. Easy test - turn down the resolution, turn off all the eye candy, then run it. See a significant increase in the way it runs? Then guess what - the CPU isnt the issue. Its time to look into replacing the GPU first.

Now, lets say you get only minimal increases - then look at your memory specs. If your running Vista for example - the OS itself should have 1G RAM, so if this is meant to be a "game" machine - then it should have 2G in it at least using Vista. XP also runs alot better when you go from 1 to 2 Gigs of memory.

Now, with all that said, the CPU you are using is older. It is however more than adequate to running SH4 without issue provided it has the supporting equipment it needs.

Given the comment of your not interested if it could shorten the CPU life, just know that OC'ing DOES shorten the life of the CPU. In today's times, its also not always economically possible to upgrade parts, so let us know if you find yourself between a rock and a hard place as we may be able to offer a few tweaks to get the best performance out of what you already have.