I know a little DirectX 9(I can draw a little, etc.), but i want to learn DirectX 10. I decided to take the tutorial that is provided in the DirectX SDK, so i did.

Almost immediately i noticed that it was heavy. My CPU usage shot up and it took much longer to load than DirectX 9. The second example (drawing a simple triangle) took over twenty seconds to complete! My PC ain't the 'newest' so to speak, so i can see why i seem to be encountering these problems.

So what I'm asking is this: What can i do to make DirectX 10 work more smoothly on my rather weak PC? and what is the best alternative to DirectX? maybe OpenGL?

Well if you don't have a Directx 10 compatible GPU, your only option is to run in reference mode which is indeed painfully slow, I am not sure about this but it could be that program notices this and switches to reference mode.
Myself i have around 7000 fps when rendering a cube.

//K0ns3rv

What video card do you have?

I have vista HP and a geforce 8600 and it renders prettymuch instantly.

Intel GMA 4500M graphics, with up to 797MB total available graphics memory

Well thats not exactly a great graphics solution. Such things are only really suited to 2d graphics.

I can imagine, i mean i only payed like $300 for my PC. oh well, maybe i can upgrade soon

Im in the same problem myself. I only had a GMA945 (Intel laptop integrated video chipset) and it was too slow for 3D modelling and CAD which i did, so i use my desktop instead. Got a £45 geforce video card in it and it works a charm.