Textures

Frame-rate reports usually don't catch the damage that high-resolution textures have on performance because the annoying load pauses get averaged out in the final number.

If you've got anything less than 128MB of video card memory, you'll be able to run low and medium textures on newer games.

If you have 256MB of video RAM, you should be able to pull off medium to high textures.

The realm of ultrahigh textures sits in the domain of video cards with 512MB of RAM or more.

Shadows

Enabling shadows will eat up some frame rates, regardless of the GPU that you have. Some games give you the option of soft shadows as well as varying levels of shadows to let you set an acceptable balance between performance and game ambience.

Draw Distance

Draw distance determines how far out into the scene the video card renders. All GPUs suffer in performance with draw distance set to maximum levels, although the toll is much greater for weaker GPUs such as the GeForce 7600 GT and the Radeon X1300 XT.

Resolution

Increasing the resolution is a sure-fire way to reduce your performance and improve graphics at the same time. Our tests show that no GPU is immune to the affects of increased resolution. If you're looking for a place to reclaim some frame rates, lowering the resolution is one of the first adjustments to try.

Anisotropic Filtering

Anisotropic filtering was pretty much a freebie option on the cards we tested. Older GPUs from the Radeon 9x00 series or Nvidia's GeForce FX lineup and earlier might have a little more trouble with this setting.

Image Quality

Jumping from no filtering to 4x makes a world of difference in Half-Life 2. You'll likely get the best performance-to-image-quality ratio on older cards by stopping here. If you have a newer GPU, you can probably crank the filtering up to 8x or 16x with little to no affect on performance.

Anisotropic Filtering Disabled vs. 4x Anisotropic Filtering

Anisotropic Filtering 4x vs. 8x Anisotropic Filtering

Anisotropic Filtering 8x vs. 16x Anisotropic Filtering

System Setup: Intel Core 2 X6800, Intel 975XBX2, 2GB Corsair XMS Memory (1GB x 2), 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA Hard Disk Drive, Windows XP SP2. Graphics Cards: GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB, GeForce7600 GT 256MB, Radeon X1900 XT 512MB, Radeon X1300 XT 256MB. Graphics Driver: Catalyst 7.3, Forceware 97.92, Forceware 93.71.