data design optimization

[BattleMan BattleClan]

hi all, i need your help optimizing a data design

my data had the following structure
group structure :
* group id
* properties

activity structure :
* group id
* activity id
* property

what i have actually is data sets broken into groups. the requirment is to retrieve all of the structures belonging to groups answering certain criteria [for example a date range, or a name and so on]

i've tried to implement it using a single table with the following fields
* group id
* activity id
* properties

i let the main group set have the activity id of 0 and all of my queries are made using the criteria "AND ActivityID=0"

now is my problem. this design is badly performing. taking several seconds for a small 1500 data sets.

i thought about splitting the groups and the activities into seperate tables.
i would like your advice on how to optimize the performance.

thank you in advance, mati

"if google fetches data in less then an heart beat its possible for me too"