Help me with my settings (Constant Crashing)

Ever since the new patch I have been crashing randomly a lot.
My load times have also risen from a sweet 3 minutes to 15 minutes.
I also don't know what half of these things do - trilinear, bloom, etc.
So if anyone can help me out with any info on any of these things it would be appreciated; pretty much I am looking for stability and reduced load time if possible.

Here is a screen of my settings;
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ings052711.jpg

(original link if picture does not display)
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ings052711.jpg

Thank in advance

EDIT: my computer stats are:
Intel Core 2 Quad processor (3Ghz i think)
4GB ram
ATI Radeon HD2600Pro graphics card

Best bet is to turn everything off or to the lowest setting (not the resolution). Then work backwards til it crashes again.

If it crashes on the lowest setting, then it might be something else.

Best bet is to turn everything off or to the lowest setting (not the resolution). Then work backwards til it crashes again.

If it crashes on the lowest setting, then it might be something else.

Only problem is I don't know which are the "lower settings" on a few things, like bilinear, trilinear, osca-whatever it is.
But I will try

your graphics card is proper bad, i suggest getting a new one. If not then:
Turn off all shadows (old ATI cards are notoriously bad for shadows)
turn texture detail down to medium
turn tree detail down to 100m

If it still crashes then lower resolution or even textures to low.

ALSO make sure you have the latest drivers for everything: GFX,SOUND,Windows update, Directx etc etc..

double post

put it on windowed

and see if ATI cards is up tp date

I have heard there are problems with full screen.

I actually had some crashes with full screen, but I have been playing full screen recently with no problems.

One setting I changed recently in my catalyst control center is Tessellation. I changed it to application controlled. Im not actually sure what this changes, and I actually changed it for a different game but Ive just left it like that for now.

Bilinear is the lowest. Then trilinear then anisotropic.(pretty sure this is right)

For me turning off bloom seemed to help without hurting graphics quality much.(I live close to the mist and go in the mist often, think that had something to do with bloom)

I would check your catalys control center and make sure your settings are ok. Things like AA and Aniosotropic should be set to application controled I think.(not sure if your card uses a catalyst control center, but think it would)

She told me in game its working.
She turned most of the settings down, left fullscreen and vsync on.

yup seems to be running right again. Lowered the distance on grass and trees, took the reflectivity etc off of water, and turned off most of the shadows.

I also turned off something that made rain look horrible so I'll turn that back on and see if it works

Thanks everyone for their suggestions