empire total war problem

[Langlest]

i just installed empire total war and patched the game up to the latest verstion but im having some problems

i run the game with everything at max settings except aa and its running fine but sometimes the framerate will drop to single digits and it starts to look like a slideshow, alt&tab to desktop and then back into the game fixes the problem so any idea what could be causing it?

here is my system

Win7 64bit
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600
Nvidia GTX295
SB Audigy 2 ZS Audio
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX
Asus P5Q Deluxe
Corsair HX 620W Psu
120gig Maxtor SATA
300gig Maxtor SATA

 

[Gimpymoo]

You installed through STEAM?

 

[nex20]

join the club

 

[Langlest]

nope, dvd
its annoying because it seems like a really good game
i might just forget about it tho if its a common problem and pick up medieval total war 2 instead