Visual Basic & Progress Databases

My company is currently using Mfgpro 8.6c with a Progress DB 8.2c. I do most of my developing in Progress 4gl but want to write some apps in VB. I am using VB6 and Intersolves' ODBC Direct drivers (ver 3.11). My problem is that the connection is really slow (especially when using dbcombo boxes or dbgrids). My client machine is running windows 98 second edition. The progress db server resides on a sun solaris box. Has anyone had this slow connection problem? Are there other methods of connecting to Progress with VB? Any help would be greatly apprectiated.

Peter Bowne