It's not that it's so intense (my P2 266 here at work gets ~37fps at 1152x864 after I added an old Voodoo3 from home) so much as it isn't as optimized as it should be. It'll always keep trying to do more, even if you limit it to 60fps, it eats CPU cycles for breakfest, lunch, dinner, and a midnight snack!
IMHO, this problem should be addressed before anything else...