Annoying Loading Screen/Hanging Problem - Steam Only

[Ginryuu]

Hey all,

I decided to post this here in addition to the steam forums since that place is kind of dead atm O.o. Even though I'm guessing most of you guys are not playing TQ:IT through steam, I figured I would ask here just in case someone would know something that could help me. Here is the situation I am currently facing.

Whenever I die or teleport back to a town, almost everytime the loading screen with the shield would hang for about 5 minutes or more before I would see my character again. Sometimes it would even hang to a point where the game becomes not responsive and I am forced to kill the process manually.

Before this I was playing on my friend's copy of TQ:IT and never
experienced this problem whatsoever.

I have tried:

* Checking the integrity of the files
* Defraging the cache
* Defraging the HD where Steam is installed
* Re-downloading the files in order TQ->TQ:IT
* Going to the settings file and changing the force single core variable to false
* Same file, going to the skip compatibility check variable and setting it to false as well
* Turning off my Sound Acceleration
* Making a small pagefile on my main HD, with the main pagefile on another HD.

Granted the last two actions are for "rubberbanding" problems, but I figured it wouldn't hurt =P. In the end I am still not sure what is causing this game to perform so badly on steam when I can run a standalone copy with no problems....well other than steam of course =P lol. Would anyone have a valid solution to this? Well other than purchasing another retail stand alone copy for myself, which would suck especially since I already spent money to purchase it here [On Steam] =(.

SPECS:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz
RAM: 4GB Corsair TWINX PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P.
VID: SLI - EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Superclocked 512MB PCIe
HD: 2 x 150GB WD Raptors 10k RPM
MOBO: EVGA nforce 780i SLI Socket 775 Motherboard
PSU: Ultra X3 1000w PSU
CASE: Cooler Master CM Stacker 830
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 (yes I am not taking advantage of all 4GB of RAM due to having a 32 bit OS but oh well =P. I will upgrade later ^^.)

Also when I get back from work I will make sure I have the most updated drivers for my rig, but I really doubt that will make a difference.

Thanks ahead of time for any assistance anyone can give me =).