The application language has nothing to do with it. How fast a particular application language does what it is programmed to do depends on the server behind it. I think that the new board simply is much more HTML, and specifically table, heavy and therefore it takes Netscape 4's slower rendering engine longer to layout the pages on a slower machine. I did a test with IE6, Netscape 6, and Netscape 4.75 loading several pages on the new msgboard on my main personal system, which is a 1 Ghz Athlon with 384 Mb of Ram. IE/NS6 loads almost identically in speed and only took a few seconds to load any page. Netscape 4.75 definately is slower and took about an extra 5 to 10 seconds depending on how many posts and things were on the page. My best guess is just the table heavy design, but in any regard there isn't much I can do about it.
Even though NS4.75 was slower, it still was very livable on my system. Unfortunately, I think those with old systems with low processing power might be in your boat. So, 88Cobra's right that you'll do much better using IE5/6 or Netscape 6 on this site.
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