Odd lag / OS issue

This is bugging me. I haven't noticed it much this past week, but I did just last night. See, last week I had to upgrade from Win98SE to Win2000 Professional. I needed an NT operating system to do some of my homework, but I didn't want XP, so I got 2000 Pro - that's what my laptop uses anyway. But my laptop has always had a problem playing online...

I'm talking specifically about playing Legacy on Doom Connector (BTW, spare me the "ZOMG DONT PLY LAGACY IT SUX" stuff, I've heard it all). I can't join anyone's game without lagging them. Never could, on my laptop anyway. But now it's happening on my main computer, too. It's starting to worry me - right now I'm not playing online much (anyone who knows me on DC may have noticed my absence this past week), but I'd like to figure this out before I decide to play more often again.

I'm wondering whether or not the OS is to blame, but everyone else I've talked to who has this OS said they were having no problems. Damndest thing. Any ideas?

I never had problems with Legacy itsself, but I havent used Legacy in the last year or so. What I know from earlier versions of Legacy is; all clients are synchronized like the old doom2.exe. This means that if you connect to someone to which you have a high ping, the game will slow down for everyone to stay synchronized with you. The higher the ping, the slower the game plays. It gives you the feeling as if you're walking on ice. Is this the problem you experience? If so, the only solution is to find someone with a low ping to you.

I'd like to think it were that simple. But after a year on DC I pretty much know when lag is abnormal (as all the hosts I've tried are cable hosts, I wasn't downloading anything, etc.). Nobody seems to be able to see my ping now, even though I disabled one of my firewalls and the other seems not to be running - although who knows, 2000 might have screwed up its appearance in the icon tray... but it's never caused trouble for joining games before.