I'm having the same problem as well, three actually. One is that the only framerate difference is if I put it on very low or disabled graphics quality, I get a framerate between 30-50 (the same between the two). Then if I change it to normal to very high I get 10-20 fps. My pc is pretty good and I should be able to have it running on normal. The quality features (post process, AA etc) is all disabled/off. This problem happens when I'm looking at a town or a few buildings. When I'm looking straight down at the grass, my framerate will increase another 20fps which is great but not helpful if im looking at the ground all the time... The second problem is viewing certain objects decreases framerate. It's mostly larger buildings in the distance causing this. The third problem is while this is all happening, every 5-10 seconds I get a framerate hiccup lasting a few seconds then returning to normal framerate. I know my videocard is a bit out-dated but I'm sure it doesn't deserve to have to use very low quality; or maybe it is outdated because it only has 1280mb on the GPU? Core i7 2.8ghz 470GTX 16gb ddr3 240gb corsair force GT SSD Windows 7 home x64