Thanks for the answers! I should've specified a bit better what my current settings are.
I have everything turned off (AA, AF, Grass, Shadows, SSAO) and everything on the lowest settings possible except for models on High and effects on medium (so I actually know I'm hitting!).
Other than that I'm running 1280x720, with DX9 since the game doesn't start under DX10.
There's not much else I can turn down, which is why I'm thinking of manually changing conf.ini
I'm on a laptop with a medium-range i5 (520 or 540?) and an nVidia 330M, 4gb ram, Win7. Not the fastest piece of junk in the world