[BF3] My character doesn't cast shadow and The 470mb update

[perplexahedron]

Hi,
Few questions (playing on ultra):-
1. When i look around my character's feet, there's no shadow being casted whereas other npc's and objects cast. Is it only me or its made so?
2. When i try to play multiplayer or co-op (at the battlelog site). It says to updatethe game with a whopping update of around 470mb. Problem is i'm having a 512kbit/s connection which gives only 50-60kB of download speed. Question is, is that update necessary to play multi or co-op? Can i somehow bypass it? What's there in that update? I mean the changelog?
3. Any way to remove the crosshair? Its there even on hard difficulty and feels like a bloat on the screen.Thanks.

 

[acoolman]

I also want to know, how do this

 

[perplexahedron]

Bump

 

[perplexahedron]

Oh is it that hard of a question? Anyone can launch the game on his/her pc and confirm the shadow related question. And so many people play multi and co-op and none can answer about that too?
Or if its due to the lack of system configuration, here it is-
C2D e7400 @ 3.2GHz
3gb ddr2 ram
asus 560ti gtx ( 267.XX driver)
19" LCD @ 1366x768 ( i know its small but i've become used to it)
Gigabyte G31M ES2L rev 1.1

 

[perplexahedron]

bumping in a last hope of an answer.