Since the 1st patch I notice much more texture reloading (esp. on the campaign map when switching between strategic view and map for example) and also what looks like unit sprites instead of 3D models for troops in medium/far distance on the battle field which I didn't notice before.
This is all on maximum settings including 'unlimited video memory' to avoid any downgrading.
In the benchmark I also noticed some late texture loading but no sprites.
Does anyone still have the original executable and dll without the patch from the Rome 2 folder? I stupidly didnt make a backup. Some settings might be in the data files but checking out the different executables would be interesting.