I am helping a friend set up a Counter Strike server using CentOS Server 4.2. We want to optimize the kernel for the highest possible FPS on the server, which I found after searching is affected by the clock resolution. In the newer 2.6 kernels, this I believe can be edited in the CONFIG_HZ variable (ie, setting it to 1000 instead of 250). However, this version of CentOS uses the 2.6.9-22.EL kernel, which apparently is to old to have this option.

I tried downloading a vanilla kernel from kernel.org (2.6.16, the latest version), running make oldconfig, and then changing the variable, but it resulted in a kernel panic with the error "attempted to kill init." After more searching I found that the CentOS kernels are heavily patched.

So, I have two questions. First of all, is there another parameter, or something else I can edit to make the 2.6.9-22.EL kernel source compile a kernel with the different clock resolution? Or second, is there a copy of the latest (or a later) kernel source that has the CentOS patches? I've searched, but the 2.6.9-22.EL source was the latest I could find.

you simply misconfigured your kernel.
you do not need to tweak any kernel settings in the centos distro
just use the default kernel
it will do just fine as is for what you are asking

By default kernel, do you mean to just not use the old config at all? Also, here is the exact message, when I try to boot to the new kernel:

Here is my grub.conf:

The top entry is the new kernel, while the bottom one is the kernel that came with the distro and will boot.