in reply to Which is the best compiler

256MB of RAM? with XP?!!!

Best enhancement to that system is apt to be pushing RAM to 512 or 1 GB.

Not a perl solution... and those above that are may provide big gains, but just cuz MS sez 256 is minimum RAM for XP doesn't mean it can run happily in 256. Suspect a big piece of your CPU useage is moving stuff to and from swap.