Patch 1.44 seems to have some small problems, here and there, that not everyone encounters, but on the whole I'd say it's definitely a good patch to start at, and I haven't encountered any insurmountable problems. (I did have one random crash to desktop, utterly unexplained, but I'm as willing to blame that on my low memory [I only have 256 mb of RAM and can't upgrade for a month because honestly things like rent and electricity come first] as I am on the game.)
So basically: everything seems pretty playable for most people, and you should be okay.