ok here is what i've done so far:
downloaded the O&O defragmenter. free 30 day trial.
works like a charm.
installed version 71.84 of drivers (closest ones to 71.44 nvidia had on their site)
page file now at 4gb min
everything non essential is turned off eg. anti-virus, popup blocker, everything. went through task manager and turned off almost everything non system or local network use.
completely uninstalled (including the leftover folders) and reinstalled sh3 w 1.4 patch
aaaannndddd... nothing.
had to take the intro videos out of the folder again because it would just crash on loading... might be something kinda complicated there. i don't know.
but after moving those videos it loaded fine but I still have the same problem. 65-100% cpu usage making the game unplayable all through the game from main menu to sitting at the dock at beginning of mission. i am not pleased.
lol
While running i checked task manager just in case and nothing else was even using any cpu or any major memory usage.
my thoughts are, maybe something with having windows media 10? when installing it says you need to install windows media 9 codecs to run it.
something with the bink player codec. the intro videos use bink i believe and since those don't work maybe something is conflicting with bink.. but not that i can figure out.
Otherwise I have checked ubisofts community support forums and nothing there is too helpful either.
i don't know what i could do short of reinstalling windows and starting over. i
really don't want to do that as it is a pain and a half.
thanks for the tips so far but nothing seems to work..