Graphic Settings Optimization Help

[MononokeSan]

Unlike most people (as I'd guess, at least), I'm not here asking how to get the game to be playable.  I'm here asking how to make it run best.  My laptop is very strong (it even has a desktop processor), and I'm used to just cranking the graphics settings on every slider to the max on everything I play without thinking about it (a new luxury for me).  However, I'm having a few issues with the game freezing/stuttering for brief periods of time.  Specifically, when using alternate weapons, like flamethrowers or the harpoon gun you use in various quests.  When I click to activate them, the screen almost always freezes for a second or so.  Is this an issue isolated to these optional extra weapons, or is this an issue I can expect to see crop up more often later when things start getting more graphically intensive in combat? (fwiw I'm playing a Force Master and haven't really had notable issue with this so far for much other than the special weapons like flamethrowers)  If the latter, what sort of settings should I use?  Normally I'd try and figure this out myself, but I understand that this is apparently a relatively older game, and so is not optimized terribly well for current systems or something, which makes things magnitudes greater of a headache for me to work out.  Thanks in advance to those who read and reply

for their time and assistance!

 

Edit: I've noticed this short stuttering/freezing also occurs sometimes when I activate Fire Fury (to spawn the orbs when given the prompt saying I can do so) and also sometimes when starting or during travel using dragon pulses.

 

These are my specs:

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 10586) (10586.th2_release.160126-1819)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.6GHz

Available OS Memory: 16342MB RAM

Page File: 4011MB used, 14761MB available

 

My graphics card:

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M

Display Memory: 14221 MB
Dedicated Memory: 6050 MB
Shared Memory: 8170 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

 

 

Currently I'm using the following graphics settings: Fullscreen, 1600 x 900 (wide) resolution, V-Sync OFF, Limit Frame Rate: 60, Limit Frame Rate in Background: 20

Advanced settings seen here:

  

 

[MononokeSan]

Bump?