Promote wrote: So its just a coincadence people run faster in low detail?
Low detail is something very different. And I'll tell you why.
All item sprites in the PAK files are GRAY, and they are loaded in the memory when the game starts. As soon as you see people with colored items, the game colors that item ON THE FLY. This takes up cpu cycles. So, Siementech put in a low detail mode that skips this on the fly generation of colors.
Low detail also skips alpha blending of the trees, and skips drawing shadows (this also happens on the fly).