Thanks dertien for the advise! Actually known and done most of that, including reducing particle density to 75%, but never thought about terminating explorer

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Stock SHIII runs pretty well and I guess the load times are kinda long for everybody with this game, just a fact of life. Maybe when they are rather long anyway, another 3 or so minutes in GWX won't bother me as much as I'm thinking now.

I'll give it a shot.