Ok I just figured out what was making the game run slow.....its that setting called "ubersampling". Turned it off and now the framerate is fine. Unfortunately it DID make everything much smoother and vibrant, but at the cost of framerate. I'd compare it to playing Perfect Dark with Hi-Res turned on, on the N64...to playing it with it turned off.
So now the game runs fine, but is much less vibrant.
Damn I just got past the huge beginning of the game, to the point where it REALLY kicks in....and this game is brilliant. So cinematic, so beautiful. The pacing is awesome. It feels like I'm playing an epic movie. This is one of those games that I'd recommend people build a gaming PC just to play, along with Crysis.
I've seen the dice game played. Seems you have to drag your mouse to cause them to be thrown instead of dropped.
Is it just me, or do the characters that make up the world of Witcher 2 feel much more REAL than pretty much any other game out there? Not just main characters, but even the common folk and the way they interact and go about their business....it feels so much better in this game than any other RPG, or open world game that has tons of NPC's onscreen that all feel lifeless. People in this game really FEEL like they're there.
So it turns out that I can actually run the game at a fantastic framerate, but I need to literally turn down EVERYTHING to low. Even the resolution.
After trying out the first game a couple times and failing, I finally managed to get hooked to it. I don't know if it's because of a patch, or new drivers, or that the first (tutorial) section runs like shit, but I can't honestly remember the game running so smooth on my less than modest card. I can even run the thing at my 1600x900 native res as long as I don't bother with AA. Since I had already assumed I would have to either play the game at 1280x720 or using a high isometric camera, this is just great for me.
I guess I'm in chapter 2. The game has forced me to pay more attention to potions and stuff like that if I want to win boss battles. Story is quite good within the confines of a dark fantasy setting, and it seems it will only get better. Combat feels clunky to me, but everything else is very very good. 12 hours in, and I just got my ass kicked twice by a fucking dog with flames coming out of its ass. Time to go to sleep. 
Flames from its ass? Should've taken some Beano.
That's one of the toughest boss fights, simply because the player can't be expected to have a very powerful Geralt at that point in the game. If your Aard is able to stun, you might try using that. It unfortunately doesn't always stun, but when it does, you can get a one-hit kill on The Beast. I've killed it or seen it killed just a few seconds into the battle with this tactic.
In the end, that's how I beat it. Stun locked-one hit kill. Felt cheap, but hey, I also felt the dozen times I died before were cheap too. 
Holy fuckity-fucking shit. I have never experienced a worse tutorial, and if I have I'm supressing the memory.
I'm just finally getting into the game now. I thought having played the 1st game that W2 would be easier to get into, but they changed so much of the controls and the inventory systems that it takes some getting used to still. I like the changes to the combat; it feels much more intense and action packed now. Some of the inventory changes are weird, the game seems to change your tracked quests on its own sometimes, and the way to have to meditate to drink potions is odd. Also leveling up reminds me of Final Fantasy, what with the ability tree and all.
The game itself seems much more cinematic than the 1st game. And the characters feel much more vivid and alive. What's up with the dice minigame? I loved it in the 1st game, but I can't figure out the strategy to it in W2....my dice just drop to the table instead of getting shaken.
Even after the update, the game still seems to run a bit sluggish for me. I'm crossfiring two Radeon 4850 GPU's, which is the recommended GPU for the game. And I've got an AMD Quadcore CPU. Maybe I should turn off some of the bells and whistles? The game automatically set it to Ultra Spec.