This site can be used to calculate the exact time in years, months and days for an IGT run based on the end date. This particular link comes prepped with the EU4 start date so it's easy to use. Credits to ChromePoison for finding the site. (external link)

Instructions for how to set up your steam account so that you can access patches earlier than 1.27. (external link)

If you want to do RTA runs but your computer isn't the fastest, then you might want to try recording with Nvidia Shadowplay (assuming it works with your particular computer). Shadowplay records using your GPU and thus doesn't cause any slowdown to your CPU, which can lead to better game perfomance while recording. (external link)