I've been experimenting with different nvcp settings and can't seem to change the graphics much or I get blue artifacts. I have a GTX 550 and the game runs fine with the highest settings in-game except for the sharpness filter that is looking for a quad cpu. This one is odd because FPS drops way off then will pick back up as if the option is being turned off.

Do the nvcp settings actually work? If so is it best to turn AA and AF down/off in-game and set the nvcp to 8 or 16 for AA and AF? Please post your settings used to get best detail. Thx.

It's best not to use AF in the NV control panel at all; the way Rage handles textures is completely different to other games and traditional AF settings don't apply. I don't know about AA but I'd be inclined to use the in-game option nonetheless.

Because of the way the textures are split into small blocks, you wouldn't want the level of anisotropic filtering (AF) to be higher than 4x 'samples' - otherwise there would be a wireframe-ish effect around the textures.
Just stick to the in-game settings for anti-aliasing (AA) aswell. A native game implementation should perform a bit better than a driver override.

TL;DR - Use in-game settings and ignore the NVCP settings for this game.