To be honest I never knew it was possible without un-synchronised gear boxes. With his really old Land Rover (It had a hand crank starter at the front) he used to go without out using the clutch.
I used to get awful frame rate problems with my new monitor my previous one maxed at 1024x768 odd and ran the game in 800x600, but with my newer, bigger monitor I couldn't see anything clearly at 800x600 so trying to play in 1024x769 was too slow. But after patch V I could play perfectly without sacraficing any looks.