[ODE] Time/Speed problem.

[gl]

> To put this into perspective, my old 800 Mhz P3 runs this simulation at 
> roughly the same speed as my new Athlon FX 2.8 Ghz with 2 gigs of ram.

Are you drawing the output?  If yes, that's your bottleneck, just don't draw 
anything.  You can't change the step size drastically as it obviously 
affects the precision of the simulation.  If you're only stepping without 
drawing, that's your maximum speed.

Which solver are you using?  The 'proper' LCP solver runs very slowly when 
you have a pile of objects in contact with one another.  QuickStep is an 
iterative solver, a little less accurate but much faster.
--
gl