I strongly suspect that it could be just that I have a very old graphics card (no more updates exist). That said, it does seem strange to me that, last I checked, I could still play War Thunder on minimum settings but not this? That gives me some hope that at least it isn't entirely my graphics card and maybe there is hope, but idk.
I did switch between the two rendering modes, no effect.
I cannot update my graphics driver, no further updates exist.
I hope it isn't my graphics driver, but I suspect. It does seem odd though that it can run much more graphically intensive games like Armello and War Thunder, albeit with a little stutter in both.
I should also mention that there are two major changes since about 6 months to a year ago, the last time I tried to play it:
1.17 update (fresh install, see below)
Upgraded the laptop to Win10. This was a fresh install and all previous files were cleared.