nfs server specification

Hi. I want to mount our server's /usr directory on the clients so that they can use scribus and inkscape. I have tried this with our amd server and 1024 Mb ram but it's too slow to be able to do anything with 2 let alone 20 clients. The user's /home directories are mounted from the same box. Could someone give me the specification for a server to be able to do what I want so that it would run at the same speed as from the client's PII 450's? Thanks, Steve.