The new version runs fine on my computer even with everything at max, but I noticed something that confuses me and I'm curious as to what is going on. If I enable "Detailed Water" in the Advanced section, my frame rate gets cut to less than half (from pegged at the refresh rate of 85 fps down to about 42 fps). The odd thing is that this happens even at fields over 35 miles from any water, say A11 on the map with the triangular sea in the middle. "Detailed Water" does not seem to affect the image at all away from water and shorelines, but it still cuts the fps. Enabling "Detailed Water" when water is visible makes the water look quite nice and I get the same, or perhaps even less, frame rate loss.
I know "Detailed Water" adds animated bump mapped waves, specular reflections, and enhanced shorelines, but why would this affect fps in areas where there is no water? Does enabling "Detailed Water" necessairly load and start some shader in the GPU that has to run, and take cycles, even if there is no water in the view, so that it is ready to process water when it is visible?
Again, I am not complaining; the new version runs just fine on my computer. I'm just curious how these things work in the GPU.
For reference: 3GHz E8400, 4GB RAM, HD4850 512M @ stock speed, XP Pro SP3, 1280X1024 with 1024 textures, detail and range sliders max, detailed terrain on, bump mapping on, self shadowing off.
