How to make the game go smoother ?

[Dexter]

Im running a

3.0Ghz Intel Procesor
with
GeForce 7600 GT 256MB
and
1 Gigabyte of RAM

I am inches away from being able to play the game at top settings at all times. But in my tests I have found that it makes very little difference whether shadows are high or off. What really impacts performance from what Ive seen, is the anti-alaising. At x8 things really do start to crawl in the epic battles so Ive settled for x4 grudgingly. There is still a tiny bit of stutter in epic sieges though and am contemplating what visual candy I am willing to sacrifice for that a little more performance.

Now, what is that Shader 1 and 2 business all about? Why would switching to Shader 1 make things faster and would the game be recognisably more ugly if I did so?

I would definitely think about adding another 512mb ram. Also try turning off shadows if they are own and the shader version, if it is set to 2 change it to 1. That'll make a big difference.

It makes a difference but not too much ... reduces the Ram use ... thats why i put it on 1 .. some video cards have trouble whit version 2 .. but since the game need at lest 512 ram ... :(((