Optimum Performance, Modern hardware?

[Rhun]

I have a weaker PC than you and its blazing fast. However what I found out is that my graphics card gets used the most (GTX660). Especially when I crank up AF and AA I get 100% GPU usage all the time. I had it up to 32x AA and it was very slow when only a little bit was happening on the screen (like a big pull of mobs or lots of corpses). Even 8xAA was still too slow sometimes. So right now I am using 4xAA and its very fast, even in very extreme situations like Chardok 120 pulls. Like that is has around 50% GPU usage on average in EC tunnel.
Oh and I run 16x AF and the upgraded textures. I dont run WinEQ.
So get a fast GPU, if you want to have the best quality!

I also noticed limiting EQ on just one CPU core makes it perform worse (I am lucky that I dont get any stability issues with 4 cores I guess) and it will always perform faster when you run it in fullscreen instead of window. So if I ever get issues with performance I do a swift alt-enter and the game will be much faster.

Loading time is shortened by an SSD, but as said before, there will always be that long delay before the loading bar appears.