Medieval 2 Total War Stuttering

[ArmoredCavalry]

I've run into a really strange problem in Medieval 2 Total War, where on the real-time game map, the camera stutters horribly, especially around units. This is at high fps also no less than 30 with settings all maxed.

I've gone through a couple steps to troubleshoot it. Setting graphics to minimum has no effect. Vertical Sync doesn't help, although it really feels like it is related to the screen refresh rate somehow...

I recently got a q9550, however, I don't remember this problem happening until now. I have tried setting the affinity for medieval2 to use only the first two cores, that didn't help. I've tried setting all the clocks to stock, on every piece of hardware, and that hasn't helped.

I have all the latest drivers, all other games work fine. Not sure what the problem could be... Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Update: Ok, here is the weird part, right now I'm playing with no problems, same exact battle that I have been testing all day. Haven't changed anything since last time...