@alieser I made a new character and tested the new beta version for around 3 hours. Here are my findings:
-You still experience lag when a new map loads, but this only lasts up to 5 seconds (With the exception of cities and forts, which cause heavy stuttering for almost a minute)
-You can still get the occasional stutter during battle, but the memory leaks have been for the most part eliminated. I can actually fight now (just killed 8 looters by myself. Something that was impossible before)
-For some reason every single NPC is now overweight/fat. It's kinda funny, but yeah, you folks gotta look into that =P
-Your face turns into a low quality (almost younger looking) model of yourself when you die. This bug was already present before the beta patch.
-The stabbing sounds sometimes lag during battle, but this is very rare.
-Textures load faster, though still not instantly
-the game can handle large battle better. I ran a 300 vs 300 (horsemen and horse archers) in custom battle and it didn't any more than it would have if i was fighting an army of 10.