it starts to go down to 1 or 0, and often desyncs occur as a result.
low sim speed and desyncs are totally unrelated and as long as the sim speed isn't below zero it doesn't affect the game at all if you play on normal gamespeed.
Yeah, this is what I thought to be honest, given the above explanation of "sim speed." Thanks for letting me know. However, is it possible that only my average sim speed was 1, and that it could be dipping down to below temporarily, resulting in the desyncs?
Anyway, the above issue is with all the graphics settings at their lowest AND with sound at low fidelity/no reverb.
I tried disactivating dual monitors and shutting down other programs, and even still my sim speeds are quite low. I will try also shutting down background processes and see if it helps any.
Thanks for help guys 
I hate to say it, but if I can't resolve this issue, this along with the netcode problems will probably tip me over the edge to request a 75% refund. It's nothing against Stardock or GPG; it's just that games are expensive and I'm a relatively poor grad student. I'll definitely be buying into the Elemental beta in June.