Changing the in-game sound setting to DirectX (from Miles) was a good suggestion from Vault Maker. Another thing to check would be one's general sound-card settings. It's hard to give advice on a problem unless I can see it first-hand for study, but that's not to doubt some players have such problems.
Try checking the usual suspects:
--Give bos.exe administrator permissions when it runs
--Try increasing your virtual memory allocation
--Don't install the game into Windows "security zones" (Documents and Settings, Program Files, etc)
--Use Windows Update to make sure you have the latest versions of DirectX.
--Using the in-game options, turn off anti-aliasing and dynamic shadows (the options aren't called that exactly, but they're in the "Display" tab of the in-game options). This didn't work for Nugent, but may work for others as there are probably several different sources of such problems depending on a particular player's hardware and configuration.
--If you're using resource hog programs such as Norton Security, temporarily disable them while playing FOT.
--If you're using the high resolution mod, try playing without the high resolution mod and see if you notice any improvement. If you're playing in a window, try playing full-screen and see if you notice any improvement.
I run the game on an old XP machine with a simple on-board graphics controller (no fancy video card), and can't say I ever notice any slowdowns at all, much less on a regular basis. I play with all the anti-aliasing options turned on as well. The answer to these problems has to be somewhere in the configuration of an end-user's general Windows installation. Everyone should try some experimenting, and let us know the results to see if we can make some progress on this issue.
Felipefpl, if by "patch to boost the speed" you're talking about some old thing from Freelancer, don't use that. It's not dangerous or anything, but it's not helpful either.