Public Area Low FPS?

[t0r012]

I've been having problems with very low frame rates in some public areas and I'm trying to figure out why.

When I am in the harbor I seem to not get above 40 fps and some times dropping down to well into the single digits. A few serious problem areas.
1. in the harbor at the bottom of the ramps that lead up to haverdasher it always seems to drop to 10 or less FPS.
2. marketplace entrance from the harbor I at the bottom of those 2 staircases I get a big slow down once again usually to single digits.

Now I do find it strange that i only pull between say 25 and 45 FPS in any public area but I can deal with that it is smooth enough for just running from place to place.
I find it strange cause it obviously isn't the engine , when I load into an instance I sit between 100 and 200 FPS with an occasional drop to say 80 or so when things get really busy.

Oh and here is the crazy kicker changing my settings down really doesn't seem to help. Tried halving the AA and AF no joy. Turned down everything one notch with the AA & AF down and still getting the same 25-45 FPS in pub areas with the slowdowns to single digits in the places I mentioned.

Tech specs
Res 1920x1080
CPU AMD phenom 9850 (2.5ghz yeah stock, no OC love form this dog)
GPU Crossfire 4850 512Mb
Windows 7 pro 64bit
2GB ddr2 800


Any ideas on why the public areas are returning such a low FPS? Any suggestions on a fix?

[dunklezhan]

you're not the only one - bottom of the marketplace I and both my friends have issues here.