all of these should improve your framerate:
seta gl_finish "0"
seta gl_anisotropy "1"
seta r_caustics "0"
seta r_reflectivewater "0"
seta gl_dynamic "0"
seta gl_stainmaps "0"
seta s_mixahead "0.2"
seta gl_highres_textures "0"
seta gl_picmip "1" (0 is regular quality, 2 is most degraded quality)
seta gl_skymip "1" (0 is regular quality, 3 is most degraded quality)
seta gender "spacepirate"
you should also go into your video card setup and disable "Vertical Sync" in your GL Options
playing in a lower resolution will also greatly increase your framerate.
these should help your network connection (a lot of them are defaults)
seta cl_minfps "0"
seta cl_maxfps "0"
seta cl_locknetfps "0"
seta cl_cmdrate "60"
seta rate "10000"
and these might make the game *seem* to run a little faster
seta m_filter "0" // if it's set to "1", it takes the average of every 2 updates that your mouse makes -- useful for making your mouse/aiming seem more smooth, but you might notice a delay in your mouse movements
seta scr_conspeed "99999" // makes the console come up and go away quicker