I would like to point out the number of times AMD or ATI shows up in those unhappy posts, and playfully urge you to remind me that this is why I purchase NVIDIA and INTEL hardware- because- surprise- you get what you pay for and Nvidia/Intel always seems to work (For me at least) where ATI/AMD fail.
And on that note, I wanted to leave the console (Or rather steam loading options) setting that pushed my frame rate up above melted butter on an oiled up glass tube. Just add this to your steam launch options:
+cvaradd g_fov 10 +set com_skipIntroVideo 1 +set vt_maxaniso 4 +set vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192 +set vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192 +set vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192 +set vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192 +set image_anisotropy 4
Tested with NVidia driver on a Fermi GTX 460 with Win7 SP1