I have been toying alot with PW2 and the higher settings vs the standard....of course the default settings are ok. Even turing on some of the mid-level settings (ie. indirect illumination, ray tracing, etc) there is a definate jump in the quality level that is rendered.
Now here is where I start to get antasy (sp) Every now and then I try to kill my PC and crank everythign up to the MAX....WHOO HOO...lets just say that I walk away, make some popcorn, watch Gone with the wind twice and at that point I look over at the computer and it is still "calculating indirect illumination" lol...I am exaggerating, but the bottom line is.....trying to factor in getting the most out of the settings. The picture quality seems to not have as big a jump from default to mid-level as from mid-level to Max.
I know the factors of haveing a better computer, hardware and all, but this is just more of a question of am I missing out on not using the highest settings?