Performance issues / Task Manager question

[Sivaeb]

I was hoping someone could give a bit of guidance for my performance/graphic slow down issues.

I mainly play on a 17" laptop with an i7 processor and 16gb ram, dedicated graphics card (though I still think the game uses integrated graphics) and when casting spells/having effects on high or lots of people around I slow down to about 10 fps.

I occasionally play on a 14" netbook with only integrated i3 graphics and I don't have these issues with a technically inferior computer.

Any suggestions??

Also, when I played back in 1999 or so, I remember my task manager having like 40 things going on. Now, when I check my current setup (I realize more stuff is going on) I have about 100. Is there anyway to trim this down? Lots of the items I have no idea what they are. I don't want to stop a necessary process.

Thank you

Sivaeb

[phacemeltar]

turn off shadows and turn LOD bias to minimum. i was lagging like crazy on a far worse machine than yours, and after i made these changes my game is real fast.

if you type the process name into google, theres a multitude of websites which will tell you what most of your processes are in detail and will assess the threat level. youre gona have to be more specific if you want to know what you can shut down.