Torchlight II help? (serious lag spikes, possible fixes, anything?)

[IFX]

Got a copy of the steam version. works much better now.

So i recently got a hold on a copy of torchlight II (something ive wanted to play for a while), and i knew id be able to run it, because one of my buddies runs it perfectly on a toaster. However, to my disbelief I came to realize that even with everything as low as low can go i still only run about 16-18 frames per second. 

This really bothers me because i do get "anti-lag-spikes" where the game runs at 120+ frames but as soon as i move even a pixel to the side its lagging again.

Here is the list of issues ive noticed:

1: 90% of the reported issues are from HIGHER END computers

2: Multi-core processors above 2 cores seem to have an issue where only 2 of their cores are taking 99% of the processing power for the game.

3: Any time i get around any form of particles it stalls. 

Heres the things ive tried to do to fix it (reportedly work but dont for me)

1: total noob move, but has a lot of good feedback: start the game with steam in offline mode, turn off any and all antivirus. result: nothing

2: unpack all of the data files, then repack them with 0 compression. result: one full gig of extra space taken up on my computer, and no fps increase.

3: turning off camera shake in the actual game files. result: Fate-Like camera movement. No fps increase.

4: Pretty much every combination of settings I could imagine. no matter how much i thought it would or wouldn't effect anything. Result: No luck. However, i learned that i run exactly the same on max, and minimal settings. So i know its not the actual settings.

Here's my stats.

Amd A10 4 core APU. running 2.1 Ghz with Raedon hd graphics. Overclocking to 2.9 without any issues what so ever.

8 gigs of ram (7.2 usable)

64 bit Windows 8.1

and about 1 Terabyte of hdd space.

If ANYONE ANYWHERE has any fix at all i would adore it. Thank you.

[Gwen]

Have tried updating your video card drivers to the latest version?

[IFX]

@'gwen':

> Have tried updating your video card drivers to the latest version?

I actually should mention that idk what was going on, but when i ran/run the steam version of the game it runs much better. I have no idea what's going on but that seems to have fixed it.