Most of what I'm about to post will come second nature to most of the folks out there. For some this may help with some of your performance issues with not just this game but other games. If others have anything to add, please feel free.

First off, if you have a laptop or a prebuilt rig, or just no experience with the insides of your system, disregard this whole thread.

Make sure you have a descent case that allows plenty of airflow. I personally use a Lanboy Air. I don't recommend this case for most people due to the complexity of the build.

If you have the descent case, make sure you max out the fans and the airflow is being pulled in from the front, bottom, and side of the case and being pulled out the top and back of the case.

Make sure you have a good CPU cooler. I recommend solid copper with nickel platting to cut down oxidization. Also, make sure you use the right amount of thermal paste. Make sure the fan on your cooler is drawing air from either front to back or bottom to top.

If your RAM came with a fan, use it.

Make sure your RAM settings in BIOs are correct. Those settings are important for a reason.

Read your motherboard's manual and make sure you place your video card in the correct spot. More than likely you will not get the full bandwidth allocation if it's in the wrong spot.

Do not use onboard sound. Use a Creative Xtreme Gamer or better to get as much of the sound processing off your CPU as possible. As good as realtek or other onboard chips are, they will never match a good sound card.

If you are using a sound card, pick a card placement as far away from the video card as possible. This allows more airflow and space for the heat to be blown away. If your sound card is PCI-E it can usually go in a PCI-E 2.0 slot as well.

If you have multiple HDDs, which can work to your advantage, make sure they are spaced as far apart as possible without blocking the airports of your video card.

If you have multiple HDDs have one partition on a HDD that doesn't have any of your OS or Programs installed and create an NTFS partition double your RAM. Use this as your Virtual Memory. It's nothing more than a glorified Swap partition. This will help speed up your system and lower the rate of fragmentation to your system.

Make sure your system is placed so that it has plenty of space to draw in cool air and vent hot air.

Make sure your PSU is more than ample to handle your system. I only need 880W for my build, but I have a 1200W quality PSU. The components in the PSU don't have to work as hard, thus creates a lot less heat, and a lot less chance of power fluctuations in your system, thus protecting your internal components.

If you overclock, make sure you have a very stable set up. Everything in your rig works of timing. Overclocking can offset some of the timing your entire system uses to keep things in sync. Thus creating more problems than what can be solved by brute force over-driving. Unsynced data can create lag and crashes, plus the extra heat you created isn't exactly great.

If you have more than one optical drive, try to space them apart. The heat from the bottom one can rise and slow down the top optical drive which reflects the heat back to the lower optical drive. This can keep going until one or both optical drives slow to a crawl or just stop all together.

Make sure your wiring is tight and out of the way of any airflow.

If it's winter time, don't jack up your heat so high and keep your case away from any heat vents.

Clean your PC once a week. Shut it down properly and blow out the dust the best you can. Clean your air intake with a moist clothe and your fans. Moist, not dripping wet, and make sure your PC is unplugged from the wall. After you unplug the PSU from the wall or UPS hit your power button to help drain any juice left in the capacitors.

If you are working inside your case, you want to make sure you ground yourself to the case. The quick and dirty way of doing this is if you are right handed hold the case with your left hand.

Make sure you buy quality parts. Quality parts last longer and usually produce less heat.

Try not to put your system on a carpet. A good hard surface is best to help keep it cool.

Make sure your drivers and software are all up to date.

If you can get a UPS, do so. It helps clean your power, plus if you have a power outage you have time to properly shutdown before any of your equipment is damaged.

If you think something in your case is "good enough" it isn't. It has to be perfect. Perfect doesn't necessarily mean top of the line parts, it means making sure the parts you have are installed properly and taken care of.