Hey y'all. 
 
I'm running the demo on XP SP3, 2.66GHz Duo, 4GB ram (registering at 2.98GB) on a  Radeon HD 2600 Pro and I'm having performance issues.  
 Settings are on low and medium - nothing abnormally high, no anti-aliasing, v-sync etc.  
 
At first I had problems after talking to diplomatic leaders, the game would slow down dramatically - only alt-tabbing out and back in again solving the problem. 
Then there are also weird little red blotches now and then on the landscape, not a huge thing, but they show up and it's weird. 
Generally speaking it's kinda sluggish, not unplayably slow but certainly not what I was expecting. 
I run Starcraft II fine on medium settings without any HUGE slowdown with alot of units on screen, same with the Medieval 2: Total War. 
 
Was just wondering, has anyone started with the demo, had these problems and moved on to the full product and noticed a difference? Anyone else had any problems? It isn't released here in the UK until the 24th, so I'm weighing up the options here.

It might be your graphics card. It seems to be a tiny bit less than even the minimum specs.