Finding graphics.txt was the reason I set to High to see if there had been a change with 2.5 before trying to force them but found it unnecessary.

Try launcher Repair option? What graphics hardware and are its settings default with no old FH2 profile?

See YouTube for examples of shadows.

On Dukla Pass only, the audio occasionally screeches during actual multiplayer (intense action?) for some time (up to thirty seconds or until calmed action?). Using X-Fi hardware.

In the documentary "Soviet Storm: World War II in the East", there is a tank of the 6th Army entering Paris with a plush bear or monkey on the main gun.

https://youtu.be/PbM4ITG0osM?t=1880




It reminded me of the Forgotten Hope bear and some searching turned up the story of Fredo:

http://gottmituns.net/2013/03/02/fredo-a-world-war-2-talisman/

Sorry if this has been discussed before... but is this the origin?

I experienced "waiting for seeds" too so thanks to Melvin for the download link. After that, the updater did find seeds (coincidentally?) and only needed to download about 88MB.

Timed St. Vith at 48 sec to create multiplayer game and so supposed it must be a more demanding map load than the "less than 40" one before. But then wondered if single player load was different and timed that at 32. But then wondered if it was reduced so much for being loaded previously and retimed multiplayer at 30.

Requiring about 12GB extra RAM? How much do load times benefit since still dependent upon CPU?

SSD would not reduce time significantly because the decompression by CPU and load into memory remain limiting factors. Also, while sequential read speed is several times faster, their main benefit is random read being exponentially faster -which does not really apply in this case.

So, what can be done to minimize peformance loss is defragment and preferably locate the game data near the beginning of the drive (of course SSD do not require such maintenance). Having the game on almost any drive seperate from the OS is better too. In fact, even with a two drive system where the OS is on SSD and the game on HDD, there is no benefit to moving the game to the SSD.

Maybe with all the latest high performance gear it could be improved somewhat but it is a matter of diminishing returns over normal times. Again, 5 minutes seems more a matter of maintenance and/or fixing problems.

Sorry for my confusing description as I was thinking of advancing N instead of E so had the map rotated 90 degrees left

So yes, that's it! The other spot behind the wall is directly across the river.