SWTOR graphics

So, with the first few days of playing SWTOR, I was excited.  And then, I went in a building.  And once I did the graphics tanked, to the seconds-per-frame range.  But I persevered, kept going, and made budgetary plans to go buy a new computer in a few months.  I had made the graphics settings all to 'low', went to windowed mode, and made the window like 500x300 and it was almost bearable (but I couldn't read anything).  But then - a friend said to turn off the shadows (I hadn't noticed the setting because it was already on 'low'), and then it worked fine!  Huzzah!