Ok, my patch experience. I did the English torrent version, I used 7zip to open it and dump the files where they needed to go.
I opened the game and it started up no issues. Went to Quick Mission with the Hurricane Bomber intercept. Normally with everything on high and SHADOWS OFF I get 100 fps when that mission starts. So I started it and saw 60 fps and thought oh oh... then I realized that Vsynch was working
So I disabled V synch and it went up to 80+ fps.. So I turned OFF FSAA and poof..103 fps... So I notice that I had Shadows On... and was still getting 100 fps...
So basically I initially thought I LOST performance but when I realsized that some things that were not working before are now working and drawing resources I was able to isolate those things and in the end I think I have just about the same performance in terms of fps but now with Shadows ON... so in effect a NET improvement, although a conservative one. Some new screens are up and things are coming along..
Reading through the posts I'm absolutely AMAZED how many people with various hardware and almost random conf.ini settings also run all sorts of after market software to force this and force that while at the same time trying to figure out why XY and Z are not working in game when they work for the next guy. Try to take out as many variables as you can when you are having issues..it makes debugging a ton easier..