The ENBSERIES DirectX 8 to DirectX 9 Converter is an extremely easy way to make Istaria run better! By converting Istaria's DirectX 8 API calls to use DirectX 9 in real time, one will notice immediately that their framerate will increase noticeably (often by double digits in many areas) and that some texture issues are fixed. While it's not 100% perfect by any means (it is certainly possible that it may rarely cause issues with certain graphics on occasion), I and several other Istaria players have performed quite a bit of testing with great results and hardly any issues at all. I encourage everyone to at least give it a try, if not stick with it, as who wouldn't want to have performance increases and visual fixes?

Two examples of said graphical fixes, thanks to Miiralaeuntryr Rashemi for the heads up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbJE1HOlWvI (Water rendering is fixed for NVIDIA users)
http://sta.sh/0148ap2vj8wq (Water/lava flow in now flows in front of dragon murals instead of being cut off)

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INSTALLATION:
Download and extract the contents to your Istaria folder where Istaria.exe resides. You only need the d3d8.dll and enbconvertor.ini to install it, and no changes in the INI file are needed.

http://enbdev.com/convertor_dx8_dx9_v0036.htm (the download link is the little pixelated down arrow on the page next to "ENBSeries DX8 to DX9 Convertor <version>" below the page header)

REMOVAL:
Delete d3d8.dll and enbconvertor.ini from your Istaria folder.

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Please feel free to post any information below concerning what this modification fixed and how much of a framerate increase you noted with your hardware (listing CPU and graphics processor models would be great!) I'm looking forward to your feedback!

PROBLEMS?
If the game hangs at launch, try relaunching the game a few times and make sure any programs that hook into games and display framerate or other overlays in the game are disabled (e.g. RivaTuner Statistics Server bundled with MSI Afterburner), though there may be workarounds and you can likely disable them just for Istaria.exe.

PLEASE NOTE that this modification also limits the maximum framerate to your monitor's refresh rate, which honestly should not be an issue.