Highest is not always Best

Many, if not all, PC gamers love to put their graphics on the highest they can. I too love to do this. For the most part, games do a good job of suggesting the setting you should use. Yet, just because you can play at max settings, doesn't mean you should. Playing on the top quality may be great, but what people may not realize is that their graphics card may not be able to handle such high graphics. The better the graphics, the less frame rate you get. Now this may not hold true for all cards since some can actually use the highest settings with no problem. However, if you are experiencing frame rate issues, try turning your graphics down a notch, you may get some FPS (frames per second) back. In addition, there is something called "AA", or Anti Aliasing. The higher this is, the finer and more crisp your game will look. My graphics card can do up to 16x AA, however if I put it that high I lose lots of FPS.  I tend to keep my AA at 4x, maybe a little higher. Lowering your AA can drastically increase your FPS. If the suggested AA is none, then use that if you are going for performance over quality. In the end, you will have to strike the perfect balance between performance, and quality. You see things differently then others, which is why it will come down to you in the end. Test out different settings, find your fit, and stick with it.

~Dave