OK, so I've been doing a whole bunch of stuff as suggested throughout numerous forums. I've put in several launch options in Steam that people suggest to use, I got the cache folder working and I put in a rageconfig.cfg file where it's needed to load the 8196 textures. I've also forced VSync and Triple Buffering through the nVidia CP and I've also bumped the in-game AA to 2x and turned on GPU transcoding.

After all this, I have to say that for the most part, Rage is looking better than ever. Textures look a lot nicer (but still could use an HD pack as suggested by id) and pop-ins when I turn around have been drastically reduced. While not completely gone, the time it takes to load the better textures after turning around is nearly instantaneous, so it's a lot better.

But there are still two issues:

1. Tinted darkness still exists. Green, Red and Blue depending on the area. The sooner I find out how to get rid of this, the better.

2. Even forcing VSync on doesn't seem to stop tearing entirely. Whenever I move around the world, a significantly noticeable tear can be seen climbing up from the bottom of the screen to the top, cycling as long as I keep moving. Mouse turning doesn't do it, only WASD movement. Stop moving when that tear is in the middle of the screen, and the tear stops, too. But start moving again, that same tear picks up right where it left off, climbing up.

SO CLOSE to a flawless experience...

I pre-ordered RAGE after being excited for this game for a couple years. After seeing all the bad PC experiences on release day, I contemplated returning the game as soon as it got here (I couldn't cancel as it was in shipping process). I got my copy installed today and out of the box (no creating the "Local" cache folder, no CFG changes, no driver update, no command line switches), I was able to start a new game, get out of the ARK, and walk around in the beginning. I didn't go much further because I just wanted to see how bad it was going to be. I was pleasantly suprised by how well my 3-year-old PC performed. Yes, there was some texture pop-in, but it was pretty quick and not too noticeable. I'm thinking of performing some of the tips to try to improve my experience, but I have to say I am happy so far. I need to play a little longer to see what happens once I get going, but my first 5 minutes have been good.

I set my in-game video options to use 4x Anti-Aliasing and to use GPU Transcoding. In my nVidia control panel I have V-Sync set to "On" and "Triple Buffering set to "On".

Once I've performed the configuration tips, I will see how things go and report back.

PC Specs:

Operating system: Windows 7 Pro x64
CPU: Intel Core Duo Quad Core Q9400, 2.66 GHz
MB: ASUS PQ5 Deluxe
RAM: 4GB Kingston @ 1033 MHz
Video: EVGA 280 GTX 1GB (Using GeForce 280.26 WHQL drivers)
Monitor: HP w2207h, 1680x1050 @60 Hz

UPDATE:

I performed a couple of the tips suggested to try to help the texture pop-in and I have to say the game runs smoothy, and I could not detect any pop-in. My experience is only based on first exiting the ARK and looking around. I have not really gotten into the game yet, so I have yet to see if it crashes, lags, or has any other problems that I've seen mentioned in other topics. I will update again once I've had a chance to play through it a little more. I just hope the info I've posted here may help someone.

The tips I performed were:

1. Created the "Local" cache folders
2. Added the launch options "+com_allowconsole 1 +com_skipIntroVideo 1" (NOTE: These have no bearing on performance, I just wanted the ability to enable the console and skip the intro video)
3. Created a config file using the settings from the geforce.com article (http://www.geforce.com/News/articles/how-to-unlock-rages-high-resolution-textures-with-a-few-simple-tweaks?sf2286832=1)

Here is my config file:

vt_maxPPF 16
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192
vt_restart
vt_maxaniso 4
image_anisotropy 4