[Derek]

No, it was all menus, and I wasn't playing it windowed.

However, the solution was to turn off SLI. Who knew that the thing that made my computer a beast in all other graphics intensive games slowed it down in this?

gah, I love this game (and SE4 and SE 3), but heck, the programming is not up to par, I hate to say.

Oh well, I can only hope that Aaron patches SE 5 with the same intensity that he patched 4 and 3.