Your graphical standards?

Hey guys, I was just curious what everyones graphical standrads are for running a game? By this I mean are you willing to play a game on the lowest settings as long as its smooth, or are you one to wait until you can play the game with max settings? Or somewhere between the two, or something else specific. Because of my 8800GT bogging my system down, I can't run STALKER: SoC (modded) on high settings with silky smooth frames :(. It's not like my computer cant run it well enough, but I guess with such an atmospheric game like it and Crysis, I wan't to play them maxed out and silky smooth :P.

I prefer to play games at their maximum settings. Aside from Metro 2033, I can max out every game and get good performance.

If I have to go below medium settings and 1280x800 to make it playable, that's when I know it's time to upgrade.

Thankfully for the moment I can still usually get away with high settings at 1680x1050.

If it "feels" playable, I'll play it like Crysis at 25 fps or FSX at 15 fps for example.

As long as the framerate is solid at my monitor's native resolution(1440x900), I'm fine with playing at low settings. Although, I do prefer to play at at least medium.

I play my games maxed but I'm pretty sensitive about framerates.

That means some games absolutely need to be 50/60 fps (depending on refresh rate, looking at you Riddick you 50 hz resetting bastard), while others like Crysis don't due to great motion blur.

I'd rather play every game on Maximum settings but my Graphics card likes to disagree with me on that from time to time, as Long as the Framerate keeps up I'll play anything.

Since I still play games from the 80' Id say that as long as the framrate is stabile, I will play anything, and enjoy it :P

If I can run it smoothly, then I will max it.

I prefer to play on max with a good framerate, but some games I have to turn down a bit and even then the framerate is just playable. Metro 2033 is a great example of this. I think I played on high with DX10, no AA or AF or anything with an average FPS of around 30. But damn I am glad I played it. Most underrated game of the year in my opinion.

If i can hold 30+ FPS i will play it low.

Once i finish my build i expect to play most games at max.

I see some people saying they play old games so graphics don't bother them, and I know what they mean, but those games look the way they are meant to look. I have no problem playing Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, and other "bad" 3D games, but I just feel wrong playing STALKER for the first time on mediumish settings :P. I guess it sort of depends on the game too. STALKER seems very much about its atmosphere, which is hard to enjoy if its not all there :P.

Any graphic settings below medium injure my eyes, and low framerates injure my brain and make me go into a temporal slow-motion disorder.

Can't properly enjoy a game if the framerate is crap.

i do like to max all modern games out, but i still play loads of old games with old graphics so i wouldn't say im a graphics whore. :)

Performance is more important to me than graphical quality. As much as I'd love to play every game at the highest settings, if I can't keep a framerate of about 25 fps, I have to lower the settings.