What zaebja said is good but you can reduce lag even more.
This is for windows vista & 7.
go to your desktop main screen (minimize everything) right click and go to "personalize" then go to "theme" & find "windows classic"
or if you don't see that then go back to "personalize" and go to "windows color & appearance" and select windows classic.
that will reduce the animations on your pc making your pc speed up a little.
also you can run gamebooster which stops all "non-important" processes & applications that are running.