Lag/lockup while zoning

[BadOlaf]

So I'm new here and don't kill me if this has already been covered please.

I'm having issues while zoning (death, going from server list to character select, and normal zoning). My client is locking up for at least 20-45 seconds whenever I zone and then it'll cut to the loading screen and almost instantly load and zone me in. This is really rather annoying when I'm using a rig that should blow this game out of the water.

Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening? Is it my rig or the server/game/emu? I've been told that multi core processors have issues with eq and I've tried setting eqgame.exe's affinity to one core while running and it doesn't make a difference. I'd really like to fix this so if you could throw me some ideas/fixes it'd be much appreciated.

Rig specs:

intel i7 @ 3.6 (quad core)
6gigz ddr3
nvidia 9800 Gtx+
vista 64 ultimate

if you need any other info let me know and I'll do my best to provide it.

Thanks in advance for your help.