I have a intel pentium 4 2.8ghz processor with 2gb ram and a 250gb hard drive.

The game seems to be very slow, even if i am only running 5 leagues and a large database, it should be able to handle a huge database, why is this, any ideas?

It seems to take ages just to get to the next game.

I have done a defrag, i set the game detail level to minimum and several other things.

Anyone else have this problem?

I could put it bluntly and tell you that even if SI define the entry level (read: minimum hardware requirements to play the game) as pretty low, in fact this game can run slow as hell on any machine depending on the settings of your save. From my experience, you don't even need a database that big, but this is always gonna be a subjective thing. Always good to have something to take a sip from for those inevitable periods of.. waiting.

Talking about your machine, the Pentium 4 chip is really old. SI are recommending a dual core CPU for optimum performance (AMD X2, Intel Core 2 Duo, etc.), so this might very well be the culprit.

Try turning off your virus checker or setting it to ignore SI relevant folders. This can achieve massively improved performance.

Also, don't have norton as a virus checker :p

ugh, norton. I finally got rid of it last week.

i have spybot and AVG as my virus things are they any good for the game
are they particuliary slow?